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Strong finish not enough to lift Hawks
By Curt Herron
But after gauging the reactions of the squads following the Warriors' 1-0 win in Aurora, it was anyone's guess as to who prevailed. That's because while Waubonsie hung on for the win, its play in the latter part of the match was unacceptable to coach Angelo DiBernardo. Meanwhile, Hawks coach Ben Beary was particularly proud of how his squad battled in the late going, even though they came up a bit short. "The first 10 minutes were our worst 10 minutes of the game and they scored on us," Beary said. "The last 10 minutes were our best 10 minutes and we had a lot of opportunities. "I just told my guys that if they can figure out a way to play the whole game like they did in that last 10 minutes then they can beat anybody. This is another game that we have to learn from. "It shouldn't take you being down 1-0 in a close game for you finally to decide that you're going to pick it up and do your best. A lot of guys learned that what they thought was there best wasn't." The Warriors (5-3, 2-1) converted just 5:19 into the match when Oliver Mayer headed in a shot following a corner kick by Johnny Akl. That was only the third goal allowed by Bartlett (4-2, 1-1) this season. The Hawks had posted shutouts during their last two matches. Neither squad did much during the rest of the opening half as Mayer and Hawk Joe McCullough both turned one of the few shots on goal. It was a completely different story after the break, however, as the visitors began to apply all kinds of pressure on keeper Sean Elvert. At the same time, the Hawk defense of Brett Palmer, David Wade, Brett Dini and Fabio Aiello allowed few threats against keeper Jeff Gal. During the first part of the second half, McCullough, Alex Ortiz and Mike DiNuzzo all managed to put shot attempts on goal. With 18 minutes left Ortiz sent a header that was stopped and four minutes later his apparent goal on a header was negated by an offsides. Tyler Lake and Charlie Sordini sent headers toward the net during the final 10 minutes but those efforts were also unsuccessful. Gal even got into the act in the late going when he sent a free kick from just inside the midfield stripe that was knocked away by Elvert. One last Hawk hope came with 50 seconds left when McCullough sent a shot toward the net but it was cleared away by Corey Lettieri. "We probably should have won this game," junior Tommy Russo said. "If we'd have played like that in the first half we would have had many more chances and I'm sure we would have put some in. "If we keep playing like this we can compete with anyone. We have great chemistry so our practices and our games are fun. We've been playing together our whole lives so we're close friends." So despite seeing his squad suffer its first conference defeat in a match that they could have won, Beary is upbeat about what he saw late. "We definitely won the possession in the second half and probably had more opportunities than we've had in a lot of halves this season," Beary said. "We just had a lot of really close calls. "It may not sound right, but based on the way that we played in the last five minutes, I'm walking away from this game happy because I think our guys learned something about themselves."
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2009 Schedule
Bartlett starters vs. Waubonsie Valley
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The scoreboard showed that Bartlett had lost to Waubonsie Valley in Thursday's Upstate Eight Conference match.