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Early deficit dooms Prospect at Schaumburg By Matt Le Cren Prospect coach Kurt Trenkle had a bad feeling coming into Tuesday night’s Mid-Suburban League match at Schaumburg. His fears turned out to be well-founded. Despite having the better of the play for a majority of the match, the Knights saw their four-game winning streak end with a surprising 3-1 loss. “We dug ourselves a hole that we couldn’t climb out of,” said Trenkle, whose team trailed 2-0 at halftime. “Hopefully that won’t happen again for a long time and we can learn from it. The nice thing about this game is we get to train tomorrow for a game on Thursday that is just as important.” The Knights (9-3-2, 5-2-1 MSL) had an inkling of how the match would go during a 15-second span in the ninth minute. Prospect’s Patryk Ruta broke in alone and fired from just inside the penalty area, but Schaumburg goalie Jason Wojcik, who was just called up to varsity, rushed out and kicked it away. The ball went all the way out to midfield, where midfielder Erhan Caglayan settled it and raced 40 yards straight through the Prospect defense before beating Knights keeper Jim Brault with an 18-yard shot into the lower left corner with 31:35 left in the opening half. It was the first goal Brault had surrendered in five matches. “That happens,” Trenkle noted. “That’s what speed will do for you. They counterattack well. Their two first-half goals were quality chances.” The Saxons (4-5-1, 2-5-1) used an offside trap to keep Prospect’s offense in check for most of the first half, but the visitors were not without their chances. Sophomore Richard Lenke missed a penalty kick wide right at the 26:55 mark and Wojcik made four saves. Schaumburg continued to put the pressure on Brault, who made back-to-back diving saves with 12:00 left in the half, and increased the lead to 2-0 at the 6:38 mark. Mark Bielanski’s long throw-in from the right wing went to the far post, where three Saxons were waiting and Jimmy McFarland knocked it in. “I think technically there weren’t a lot of things we said at halftime that we needed to do differently other than put the ball in the back of the net,” Trenkle said. “They played the offside trap to perfection. We figured it out but we weren’t finishing. We tried to slot the ball through and then I think we tried to press too far and press too many people through on those through balls, which then drew defenders back.” Even so, the Knights came to life when Lenke atoned for his missed penalty by scoring his ninth goal of the season just 2:22 into the second half. Sam Slusher got the assist by turning the corner on a defender on the right side of the box and sliding a low cross to Lenke in front. “We definitely had the momentum from that point,” Lenke said. “I think [the key] for us [was] to finish the breakaways that we had and there were just a bunch of one-on-one chances that we didn’t finish. I blew the PK. The game could have gone much differently. I think we had the better of the play for most of the game.” Lenke’s goal jump-started an action-packed second half that saw plenty of end-to-end action. The Saxons outshot the Knights 17-10 in the match but Prospect had the better chances. Wojcik, though, finished with six saves, including two diving stops on Ruta. Lenke would not use that as an excuse. “I think he made great saves, but nothing that should have stopped us from scoring,” Lenke said. “It’s placement of the ball. We’ve got to put them in.” Caglayan finished the scoring by knocking in his second goal of the game with 9:29 remaining. |
2009 Schedule
Prospect starters vs. Schaumburg
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