Boys soccer: Wheeling gets past Carmel
Wheeling held on to resist a tenacious second half comeback by No. 13 Carmel Catholic in its boys soccer postseason opener at Hildebrandt Field to reach the Fremd regional final Saturday.
The No. 4 seeded Wildcats (13-5-1) will play Mid-Suburban League rival Fremd at noon in Palatine with a victory sending the regional champion into the sectional semifinal at Barrington next Wednesday.
"It was a good win for us, but credit (Carmel), who had a lot of fight in them, especially in the second half when they came at us hard in the final 15 minutes to make us really work to get this win," said Wheeling head coach Kevin Lennon, who after watching his club open the season at 3-3-0, has since gone 10-1-2, with that lone loss to Fremd.
"We might have been a little nervous at the start, but that first goal for us gave us the lift we needed and after that, we just had to concentrate on playing our game," added Jesus Avila, the Wildcats' center-back.
"Jesus helped settle us down all afternoon, just as he has all season long, and we really needed him to be the leader that he's been, because Carmel didn't go away until the final whistle," said Lennon.
The Wildcats scored first through Braynan Macias' crafty finish off a Luis Aviles helper at 16 minutes, but extraordinary work from keeper Camden Krautsack kept the Corsairs (7-10-1) in the contest, despite a Jason Rivas strike just before the intermission.
Wheeling had a lot of firepower in its attack but fortunately, Camden had a great game for us today keeping a couple of goals out of our net in the first half but as we have at times this year, we came back strong in the second half to make it a game," said Corsairs head coach Ray Krawzak.
Eli Larson, a towering presence in the Corsairs' back line during the first half, and a key figure after the break, brought his club closer when he converted his spotkick in the 46th minute after Ian McKernan was hauled down in the box.
But the Wildcats came right back to double their advantage on Rivas' double, which came six minutes after Larson scored.
After all-state candidate Jared Urueta just missed adding another to the score line for the Wildcats, Ryan Bobber drew the Corsairs one-goal closer to set up a frantic final 10 minutes of regulation.
The best chance for the Corsairs to equalize came after a terrific free kick from the midline from Michael Handel fell into the six-yard box, where no less than three point-blank shots on frame were attempted, one of which 'Cats keeper Elio Santana somehow managed to turn away in a crowd.
"I don't know who took that point-blank on Elio, but that was a huge save at the time to save us from possibly going to overtime," said Lennon.
While the season-ending defeat was a disappointing one, Krawzak and his club left the stadium with their heads and spirits high.
I've said all season this club never gave in, and always gave great effort, win or lose, and today was no different," began the Corsairs' coach.
"We were so young, and it took us a long time to get things sorted out, and as crazy as it sounds, if this were a 35-40 game season, this is a group that would have had a terrific won-loss record because we were finally coming together on all fronts."