Boys soccer: Streamwood dominates Rock Island to finish third in Class 2A
Talk about bouncing back and finishing strong.
Less than 24 hours after a heartbreaking double OT loss in the Class 2A state semifinals, Streamwood woke up early and took out its anger on Rock Island in the third-place game with a 5-1 victory.
It was truly an unforgettable final game for Streamwood, which will bring home the second trophy in program history, joining the 2014 team which took fourth in the state in 3A.
“It’s exciting for the kids, exciting for the school and it was perfect to have five different seniors score goals, a good way to end it,” Streamwood coach Matt Polovin said. “The number of people out yesterday and today, seeing former players from 25 years ago with their kids now, that was awesome. That’s how it should be.”
Streamwood (14-11) was up 2-0 against De La Salle at the half during Friday’s state semifinal, but conceded a pair of goals in the second half including the equalizer in the 76th minute. The Sabres somehow were able to put that difficult loss behind them scoring five goals in the first 22 minutes against the Rocks.
“We were motivated to make history for the school,” senior Max Galvan said. “We’ll be remembered for years to come and feel like that’s what motivated us. I feel like it was the energy. We had the hunger. We were connecting and playing as a team and not playing individually and we put it in the net.”
Senior Aiden Caldera got the Sabres rolling barely three minutes into the action when he finished a nice ball from Andy Benitez.
“I mean, we started off strong and fast and the other team couldn’t keep up with us and it led to the early goals,” Caldera said. “(Benitez) took it down the line to the penalty area and Josue Lopez tried hitting it and didn’t and I got a touch and finished it.”
Caldera was committed to winning in his final game donning the Streamwood uniform.
“It was tough to come back today, but it was good to win,” he said. “The night before we were down for sure and then this morning we all saw each other and said the job wasn’t finished. We couldn’t leave here without third place. We didn’t want fourth. We wanted to finish strong with a win.”
Senior Sergio Caldera wasted little time and extended Streamwood’s lead to 2-0 with 33:04 remaining in the first half.
Then Carlos Goya set up Galvan for a one-touch goal that he sent into the bottom left corner for a 3-0 lead with 25:38 to play.
“I feel like we all realized this was our last game of our last season and a lot of us are seniors so we were motivated to play our hardest,” Galvan said. “It’s huge. I’ll be talking about this probably for the rest of my life. I’ll tell my kids, grandkids. We’re bringing this state trophy to our town. It feels great to be a part of.”
Goya made it 4-0 with 23:17 still to go in the opening half before Benitez made it 5-0 less than two minutes later.