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Players' Choice 2009, Part I: The Scorers By Gary Larsen It’s all been put to bed. The lists of all-conference, all-area, and all-state players from the fall high school soccer season are now ancient artifacts. Every last accolade has been handed out. The last one to leave has turned off the lights. Heck, there’s even snow on the ground, cementing the 2009 fall soccer season as a distant memory. Not so fast. Each year, the press and the coaches have their say on who the best players around are, so we at West Suburban Soccer decided to poll a group of experts whose opinions about the best players around are every bit as valid. Welcome to the inaugural Player’s Choice Awards. We asked players from the 25 teams we covered this year to give us their views on who among them were the best of the best. The delay in posting this story was due to the lengthy process of sifting through more than 60 interviews with players far and wide. The story will be broken down into three parts, covering scorers, playmakers/midfielders, and the boys in back. The scorers The list of big goals Prince scored this year is too long to mention. He struck like lightning throughout the year, seemingly whenever the Redhawks needed a goal. “I don’t recall one time when he lost the ball when he had it at his feet,” Neuqua Valley’s Scott Davis said. “He was all over the place and he caused our defense a nightmare. He almost beat us single-handedly.” “You can’t give him any space,” Hinsdale Central’s Robbie LaRocque said of Prince. “He can score from any angle.” And who better to assess a forward than the guys in back? “I only got beat near post once all year,” WW South goalkeeper Derek Babb said. “And it came off of Prince’s foot. It was so quick, I never saw it coming.” Waubonsie Valley’s Nik Patel is one of the best defenders in the business, and his take on Prince was typical. Neuqua Valley’s Bryan Ciesiulka echoed what players from every team Naperville Central played against could have said: “He was the most dangerous player we faced all year,” Ciesiulka said. Ultimately, Naperville North defender Jake Remegi may have summed Prince up best. “He’s bigger than you are, stronger than you are, and faster than you are,” Remegi said. “As a defender, that makes him really hard to handle.” After Prince, no forward was mentioned more frequently than Scott Davis among players we interviewed. “He is the epitome of hard work,” Waubonsie’s Patel said of the Neuqua senior. “He gives it all he’s got, all the time, and he’s very fast. If he gets one step on you, he’s gone.” Naperville North’s Chris Boswell cut to the chase in describing Davis: “He works his (backside) off.” Davis had 24 goals and 16 assists for Neuqua this year, and played every game like he should have been wearing a helmet. “As a goalie, he’s a scary player to go against,” Naperville North goalkeeper Mike Wiest said of Davis. “He never stops running. You’ll think you have an easy ball, and that you have it, but you know he’s coming and he’s not going to stop. He just keeps going. He is absolutely relentless.” Lyons Township played Neuqua Valley three times this year, and that was more than enough of Davis as far as the Lions’ Chris Meingast is concerned. “You have to have those few workers that are going to go after the ball for 80 minutes, and that’s what made Davis so dangerous,” Meingast said. “As a defender you want a break once in a while, but he’s not going to give it to you.” There were forwards far and wide mentioned by players for this story, from Geneva’s Seamus Kaminski, to Downers Grove North’s Paul Hogan, to Hinsdale Central’s Michael Oleszkiewicz. Oleszkiewicz netted 19 goals for this year’s Red Devils, as one of the best around with his back to the goal. “And he’s a lot faster than he seems,” Meingast said. “He caused problems for us in both of the game we played against them.” “He draws fouls really well, he posts up really well, he’s big and he’s hard to get around,” Downers Grove North’s Neil Corcoran said of Oleszkiewicz. “You look at him and he’s a big kid, but he has some of the best turns and foot skills for a big kid that I’ve seen,” Benet’s Connor Miller said of Borge. “He’s a very good technical player, turning guys and holding the ball.” Horacio Sanchez netted 11 goals this year for Lyons Township and saved his best for last, scoring four goals in four postseason games that ended with a state title. It was Sanchez’s head shot off a Zack Piersall serve that keyed a win over previously unbeaten Neuqua Valley in a supersectional game this year. “That was a perfect flick in the upper ninety,” Neuqua goalkeeper Jack Turanchik said. “I could do my best but to be honest, I don’t think I can get to that one.”
DG North lost 2-1 in a regional title game to Naperville North, and the Huskies’ Wiest remembers Hogan well. “He was definitely a hard worker. He was like Ricky (Munguia, from WW South) -- whenever one of our defenders had a bad touch, he was there to take it away. He had a great shot, and he worked off the ball very well. He wreaked havoc against us.” Evan Trychta was a revelation at Naperville North this year, a sophomore that proved himself as one of the most dangerous forwards around with speed, scrappiness, and a nose for the net. He had 17 goals and 7 assists in 2009. “He was a handful,” Miller said of Trychta. “We couldn’t stay with him.” “He surprised us,” Ciesiulka said. “He had a great season. He uses his quickness very well and he’s got a knack for scoring.” LaLonde was equally impressed by the Huskies’ sophomore. “He’s another player where if you don’t know where he is, he’ll make you pay,” he said. “He’s dangerous, fast, and a very smart player.” Wheaton Academy’s Tim Daniels had a breakout season in 2009. The Warriors’ junior scored 25-plus goals as a big and skilled frontrunner with a knack summed up well by Marmion’s Tommy Cruger. “He has an uncanny ability to score,” Cruger said of Daniels. “He had the ability to keep the ball close to his feet and create a shot, even when you thought there wasn’t one.” Marmion’s Sam Duffield was also impressed by Daniels. “He’s just got every shot and he’s very good at setting himself up with it,” he said. The tandem of forward/midfielder Duffield and forward Max Rosenfelder led Marmion to within a game of the state’s Final Four this year. The crafty Rosenfelder had 19 goals and 25 assists, while Duffield finished with 21 goals and 9 assists. Marmion split 1-1 against Wheaton Academy this year, and Daniels was impressed by Duffield’s versatility. “The first time he was up top, the second time they moved him back to the middle and he played defense well, too,” Daniels said. “Overall, he’s just a dynamic player. He was able to do whatever his coaches wanted him to do.” “They were one of the best possession teams we saw all year,” WW South’s Drew Bellmer said of Marmion. “You could tell that (Duffield) had great awareness of the field and he knew where to put the ball before he got it.”
“He wasn’t big but he was strong, aggressive, and quick,” St. Charles North’s Dan Figura said of Kaminski. Kaminski netted 18 goals in 2009, and his running mate was a converted defender in Kevin Hilgart who netted 14 goals for the Vikings this year. “(Hilgart) went hard to every ball and played it to the open man every time against us,” Waubonsie’s Jason O’Brien said. “That’s what killed us against Geneva.” Various players interviewed talked about the size and skill of South Elgin’s Bart Mazurek and St. Viator’s Alan Aboona. Mazurek finished above the 20-goal mark in the Storm’s best season ever, and Aboona poured in 35 goals for the state champion Lions. WW South's Ricky Munguia was praised for his sniping ability, and Wheaton Academy's Brandon VanderVeen got wide mention for what he brought to the final third. "We couldn't lose track of him," Marmion defender Steve Anderson said of VanderVeen. "He was one of the guys that killed us the first time we played them." Lake Zurich’s Tim Kruetz and New Trier’s Ben Beaver weren’t covered by West Suburban Soccer, but when the subject of scorers came up they were mentioned numerous times by multiple players. WW South’s Alden Marton also paid a high compliment to a player who struggled to stay healthy this season but was infinitely dangerous when he did, in Wheaton North forward Mike Lenzi. “A fierce player,” Marton said. |
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Where forwards were concerned, no name came up more often than Chris Prince, a one-man gang in the final third this season who posted 27 goals and 11 assists in becoming Naperville Central’s all-time leading goal-scorer for a season and a career.
Asked to name the top forwards he’s seen this year, Downers Grove South’s Matt LaLonde listed DG North’s Paul Hogan. “He’s kind of a mix between Prince and Trychta. He’s physical and he’s fast,” LaLonde said.
Where Geneva’s Kaminski is concerned, St. Charles North’s Angelo Catalano saw a unique ability at work. “He’s like a bulldog. He goes into every tackle hard,” Catalano said. “You don’t usually see that from a forward who’s as skilled as he is. He doesn’t shy away from contact.”
