Relax - Mundelein takes Prairie Ridge title

While Mundelein's boys soccer team continues to work on playing cool, calm and collected, something cool happened Saturday.

The Mustangs collected the championship of the Prairie Ridge Invitational in Crystal Lake.

Goal differential gave Mundelein (4-5-3) the title after the Mustangs went 1-0-2 over two days.

They played to a 0-0 draw against DeKalb (8-1-3, 1-0-2) on Friday, earned a 2-2 tie against Prairie Ridge (6-5-3) on Saturday morning and capped the tourney with a 7-0 victory over Cary-Grove's JV.

Mundelein took the crown by scoring 5 more goals than DeKalb.

"We played well and I knew we could do it," Mundelein coach Dave Ekstrom said. "We just had to relax and play the way we're capable - and not be nervous or press."

The Mustangs are seeking a more consistent effort offensively.

"It's mostly plain nervousness," Ekstrom said. "Once we score a goal, we relax and let our natural abilities take over. Once we're relaxed, we're a good team playing with confidence."

Against Cary-Grove's JV, the Mustangs got 2 goals apiece from Eder Alcantar and Juan Reynoso. Will Lardner, Gabriel Marcos and Christian Mata also scored. Mata added a couple of assists along with Robbie Munnings, Gabriel Marcos, Gian Carlo Vassalo, Saul Figueroa and Thomas Magruder.

Javier Ramirez made 1 save in earning the clean sheet.

"It's been tough scoring some goals," Mata said. "We've played some good teams and you want to score. We've got some great players. We just need to try harder and try to do our best out there. We need to execute."

In the morning game against Prairie Ridge, the Mustangs' Nico Monroy scored off an assist from Tyler Neubauer, and George Pimental knocked in the other goal on a free kick.