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Tigers do the program proud in 2009 By Gary Larsen Wheaton Warrenville South had just taken Neuqua Valley’s best punch, a 40-minute span of cohesive soccer that kept the Tigers on their heels and put them in a 1-0 hole at halftime. “For a high school game, I think that was the best half I’ve ever seen put together,” South senior Drew Bellmer said. “It was cat-and-mouse, and we were chasing.” The good news was, the Tigers were still standing. And in the second half, they moved forward. WW South played a whale of a second half, tying the game on an Alden Marton goal and stretching the game to four overtimes before Neuqua won the Sectional title game in a shootout. “They’re one of the best teams I’ve seen in ten or fifteen years at the high school level,” Tigers’ coach Guy Callipari said of Neuqua Valley. “But we were able to play with them today.” South needed a remedy for the cat-and-mouse relationship that Neuqua enjoyed in the first half, which resulted in a Bryan Ciesiulka goal from 20 yards out. A formation tweak and a ratcheting up of urgency paid dividends for South in the second half. “We needed more pressure on the ball. You can’t watch them on the ball and have them stay on it too long, because it’s what they do off the ball that’s dangerous,” Callipari said. “We had to close down earlier, win the first ball, and that seemingly disrupted their rhythm and allowed us to create some momentum going forward.” Bellmer was proud of his side’s ability to turn the tables in the second half. “We pressured when we needed to, laid back when we needed to, and we possessed,” Bellmer said. “We weren’t so frantic. When we got the ball we didn’t just kick it away.” WW South (20-5-2) tied the game in the 57th minute, on a goal set up by a long free kick off the foot of Colin Ringel. Alden Marton was set up in Neuqua’s penalty area, and the senior flicked Ringel’s serve past the post to knot up the contest. Marton was surprised by the freedom he was allowed as Ringel’s kick came down. “I felt nobody. It was one of those things where I was all alone. It felt good,” Marton said. “I barely knicked it, but it was enough.” Three days after playing to nearly four overtimes in a 1-0 win against Naperville North, WW South took top-ranked Neuqua (27-0-1) through another four overtimes and onward to a shootout. “We needed a monumental effort, and we got that today from everybody,” Callipari said. “We showed a lot of spirit, especially late, and we forged forward. For a game plan the boys played it out to a tee. That’s all we had. We gave everything we had. There wasn’t much left in the tank. Credit to (Neuqua coach Tony Kees) and his gang. They didn’t substitute but once the entire time. We played 16 or 17 players. They had to be standing on one leg at the end, and they still found a way to fight to the end.” Neuqua won the shootout 4 to 2, sending the Tigers home for good after a fine 2009 season. Senior-led WW South won the Barrington tournament to start the season, went 3-1-1 in Pepsi Showdown play, and finished 4-2-1 in DuPage Valley Conference play. “We’re losing a terrific group of young gentlemen,” Callipari said. “They’ll go on to do great things off the field, and they’re leaving a big hole.” “We were 7-7-8 last year but we knew we’d have a lot of depth and reason to be excited this year. Next year we’ll find ourselves asking for the same thing out of a lot of young kids.” The Tigers will bid farewell to a swarm of departing seniors in Bellmer, Marton, Ringel, keeper Derek Babb, Matt Krieger, Tim Rezabek, Ricky Munguia, Manny Munguia, Andy Guerrero, Joe Bianucci, Adam Casario, Kevin Allingham, Christian Enriquez, and Juan Pablo Manzo. “Towards the end we had a sophomore and a junior on the field, and the rest were guys you won’t see again. That’s a big chunk of change that’s hard for any program to recover from," Callipari said. Will Huesing, Nathan Fuster, Alec Brazeau, George Doran, Colin Fedor, and Thomas Schubert will return next season, and a crop of younger players will need to step up for Callipari in 2010. The outgoing seniors on this year’s squad certainly showed the underclassmen what Tigers’ soccer is all about. “I think we gave (Neuqua) all they could handle. A few of them were saying that we were their toughest competition all year,” Bellmer said. “It says a lot about our class. To go 20-5-2 is quite a turnaround and it was a group effort.” “It was a great way to finish our season,” Marton said. “It’s something we can definitely be proud of.”
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WW South's 2009 results
Postseason play
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