Boys soccer: Buffalo Grove blanks Conant
It's a measure of the quality of reigning Mid-Suburban League boys soccer champion Buffalo Grove that visiting teams can arrive at Grant Blaney Stadium in full knowledge of where the danger lies, but leave being unable to do anything about it.
Coach Jason Franco knew in advance Brian Perez would be a handful in the Bison attack, but the Conant coach didn't figure on both Alexis Escobar and Alex Berk being just as dangerous as their teammate.
Escobar bagged a double, with Berk adding a trio of helpers to help lead the Bison (5-3-1, 2-1-0) to an impressive 4-0 victory Thursday night.
"Perez is a very good player, No. 14 (Berk) was just a workhorse in the middle of the park but No. 9 (Escobar) was super-quick, and just a handful all night, and maybe the best player we've run into thus far," said Franco, whose club fell to 3-4-1 overall and 0-2-0 in the MSL.
"I felt like we had a lot of the play for the first 20 minutes, but we conceded two soft goals, the second coming just before the break, and that was the one that broke us mentally," admitted Franco.
The Cougars' starting eleven consisted of seven juniors and one freshman, and this inexperienced side would enjoy plenty of the play after the opening whistle.
Berk's ghostlike run produced what looked like the first goal of the night when he latched onto a Perez ball - but the assistant referee correctly raised his flag to signal an offside.
Berk would thread a near perfect ball through to Perez at 26 minutes, and BG's leading goal scorer did the rest by beating two defenders before driving his low effort off the post and into the back of the net.
Carson Belcher, Conant's freshman forward, nearly pulled the Perez goal back when he ran onto a well aimed free kick from sophomore Brian Garcia moments later.
A looping long throw from Berk fell untouched into the Conant box - where an opportunistic Escobar redirected his short range attempt through the gloves of Conant keeper Sean Beckman.
The home side would enjoy an encouraging start to the second period - interrupted by some strong play going forward by Gabe Labay, Adrian Piekos, Andri Macolli, Garcia and Belcher, but their work was not enough to create anything of danger at Bison keeper Roman Kudrav.
Escobar would increase the Bison advantage to 3-0 in the 61st minute from just outside the six-yard box after Kevin Morales provided a terrific helper to his teammate.
Berk, who created the first and second goals of the night, was almost unstoppable between his back line and front line mates and when sophomore Charlie Mendez lashed in his 25-yard strike, the senior would collect his third and final helper on the night.
"We had a tough first two weeks of the season playing four Top 25 teams so that was a wake-up call for all of us that we have to come out and play hard from the very beginning, and I felt we did that tonight," said Berk. "We lost a chance a chance to get any points with our 1-0 loss to Barrington last week, so to take three points the other night against Hoffman, and another three tonight is exactly what we needed to do."
• If you're not a subscriber, get a great introductory deal to become one and never miss another local story.