Boys soccer: Mitra, Benet celebrate shutout
Franklin Rutkowski supplied all the offense Benet needed during its 1-0 victory over West Chicago on Thursday afternoon in Lisle.
Fellow Redwings senior Jonny Mitra provided the defensive leadership as well delicious cookies afterward to commemorate his 18th birthday.
"Jonny had a spectacular game," Rutkowski said. "Happy birthday to him."
Defense has been key to Benet's success as the Redwings earned their eighth shutout. The Redwings outshot the Wildcats 14-3.
"The defense played really good," Benet coach Sean Wesley said. "They had 3 shots and 2 were from 40 yards out so I can live with that."
Mitra and Kyle Kohlsatt led the back line in front of goalkeeper Hunter Randolph.
"Jonny and Kyle have been a huge part of our defense," Wesley said. "Today was really cool for Jonny, and he's one of those kids who loves high school soccer and being with his friends. Quite frankly, we've really been good on defense and even against Naperville North, down 1-0, and Libertyville, 2-0, so we've played great defense all year with maybe the exception of one game."
Benet (9-3-1) may have gotten a little lucky with Rutkowski's goal just a few minutes into the action, but the goal never would've happened if they hadn't been pressuring the Wildcats as hard as they were.
The ball was banging around in the left corner when Rutkowski won possession and attempted a cross to C.J. Warren. The ball never reached Warren, but better yet it got tipped back into the net.
"Chris Mankowski had a nice slide tackle on a guy and took two touches and got to the right edge of the 6-yard box," Rutkowski said. "I tried to cross to C.J., who was running on the back post, but the keeper tipped it back into the goal."
The Redwings had numerous other chances but couldn't finish any of them. Some of that had to do with goalkeeper Salvador Tamayo. Tamayo was strong in net, although he did leave briefly with an injury in the final minute of the first half but returned with a clean sheet in the second half.
"In the first half we played pretty good, moved the ball and created a lot of chances," Wesley said. "Their goalkeeper made some great saves, but we need to be ruthless in the box. We weren't and it's high school soccer so we were in for a dogfight for the rest of the day and didn't create many chances in the second half."
West Chicago (7-6-3) continues to be competitive but fell short once again to a tough opponent. On Wednesday, they lost to West Aurora.
"I looked at the calendar and we had Top 10 West Aurora yesterday, these guys Top 20 today and we have Streamwood on Saturday and they're up there too," West Chicago coach Jose Villa said. "I knew it was going to be another tough game and I liked how our boys responded."
It was a better finish than start for the Wildcats.
"We need to keep the ball on the ground where we can knock it around," Villa said. "The main thing is that we saw progress in the second half. We put some passes together and stuff and while we're not happy with the result, we're happy with the progress throughout the game."