Wheaton Academy ready to roll into Grayslake

By Gary Larsen

Going into the season’s final week, you might think a Class 2A soccer program with fewer than 700 students in its school would be happy to go 2-1 against a trio of top-shelf 3A programs in Geneva, Benet, and WW South.

If so, you just don’t understand Wheaton Academy soccer.

“I want to see us play our best soccer, every time out,” Warriors coach Jeff Brooke has repeatedly said this year.

The Warriors (14-4-2) beat Geneva and Benet in the final week of the regular season before losing to WW South by a 4-1 margin on Friday. Nobody on the losing side felt like they played their best soccer.

“We didn’t go as hard as we can to every ball,” Wheaton Academy’s Stephen Fernandes said. “We didn’t finish, and a few small (defensive) mistakes can lose you a game.”

“You don’t want to lose 4-1 on the last game of the regular season, but we’ve still got a lot of confidence,” Brooke said. “We just made a couple big errors tonight, and (WW South’s) pace and their work took advantage of our mistakes. They transitioned twice brilliantly against us.”

“It’s not one of those big shock moments of fear right before the first regional game. It’s more of a need for fine-tuning and get right back to it.”

The Warriors went into Friday’s home game in West Chicago on the heels of a 2-0 win against state-ranked 3A Geneva and a 1-0 win over a Benet team that is annually one of the state’s best.

“We have a lot of respect for those programs, and against Geneva we played one of our better games of the year,” Brooke said. “And Benet was a very evenly-played game.”

Tim Daniels continued his 2009 offensive rampage, scoring both goals against Geneva and getting the lone goal against Benet.

Daniel’s posted his 30th goal of the year in the loss to the Tigers, locating a deflected shot off the foot of teammate Babel Daniel and finishing inside the eighteen.

After South’s Drew Bellmer scored early, Daniel’s goal tied the game at 1-1 before halftime on Friday. The Tigers won the game in the second half on two Ricky Munguia goals off of long restarts, and a Bellmer blast from 20 yards out.

“They just beat us to it,” Fernandes said of the Tigers ability to get there first to two long free kicks.  “We can’t let that happen in the playoffs.”
As the top seed of the Hampshire sectional, the Warriors open postseason play at Grayslake Central against the host school, which is seeded No. 17.

The Warriors will put Friday’s loss quickly behind them, and focus on a happier, more recent memory.

“Geneva was the closest yet we’ve come to playing our best possible soccer, and we just hope to replicate that throughout the postseason,” Brooke said.

2009 Schedule
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Wheaton Academy starters vs. WW South