Barrington's rough start continues

By Rusty Silber

Barrington tried to recover from a start that's not characteristic of its program.

The Broncos gave up early goals and faltered to host Conant 3-0 in a Mid Suburban league match in Hoffman Estates on Tuesday night.

Meanwhile, Barrington goalkeeper Will Cotopolis made 6 quality stops out of 9 saves.

"We were soft in the first half and didn't show up mentally or physically," said Barrington coach Scott Steib, whose team dropped to 1-6 and 1-1 in the Mid Suburban.

"We battled and battled and tried, but we're struggling. We'll stick together and not settle for this to be the way it's going to be. We'll keep fighting. It's still early September."

Conant (4-0-3, 1-0) got two goals from Kevin Reddington, one at the 8-minute mark and another 10 minutes later. Shivam Patel assisted on the first one and Barrett Gray picked up the assist on the second.

Barrington tried to respond in the second half, being aggressive and creating opportunities, but the Cougars held them off.

"I told the (kids), ‘you've got to decide if you want to be respected’,” Steib said. "With the way we were playing it was disrespectful and there was no fight. It was better in the second half.

"We're not a team to show up for half a game. There are a lot of teams that can't do that including the good teams."

Defensively, the Broncos haven't put everything together in the early part of the season. But there’s plenty of blame to go around.

"We're just struggling and trying to put things together," said Broncos defender Ryan Foley. "It's hard with a few losses. We're doing our best and working hard in practice trying to get the job done. It's just not working right now."

Conant added another goal with 31 seconds remaining in the second half on a Gray goal.
A 2-0 lead at halftime is never safe but Conant kept the slate clean.

"We knew getting up by a couple goals would be tough for them to get back into it,"
Conant coach Jason Franco said. "(Barrington) fights and scraps. And you really can't be comfortable at 2-0. It's better than 0-0. I knew as long as we didn't mentally turn it off, we'd be okay."
 

Man of the match: Will Cotopolis

By Rusty Silber

Maybe if Will had his way on Wednesday night, it might have been a different story.

Barrington goalkeeper Will Cotopolis heard the words “spectacular”, “awesome”, and “great save” ringing all over the field and in the stands at Conant.

Cotopolis made 9 stops – 6 of which were outstanding -- including a few breakaway saves and 3 saves in one sequence off a free kick.

"I guess it's more of instinct than anything else," said Cotopolis, a junior. "I just make sure (the ball) doesn't go into the back of the net.

"It's always nerve-wracking with the one-vee-one’s. You just have to deal with them every now and again."

One of the best saves of the night came when Cotopolis stopped the Cougars' Shivam Patel on a point blank shot, throwing his body in the air to push it away.

"Best one was the one on the back post," Cotopolis said. "It's still heartbreaking, making the saves but not winning."

At first impression, Steib has seen more than what's expected in this game from his goalkeeper.

"Saves were beyond quality and Will played extremely well in the second half," Steib said. "We just didn't play well in front of him and gave him chances to look good.    

Will has been a pleasant surprise for us. We didn't know he'd be this good. We thought goalkeeper might be an issue for us."