Boys soccer: Mendota captures title of Streator Invitational Tournament

STREATOR – After a come-from-behind win in its final match of the day, the Mendota boys soccer team waited to see if its 2-0-1 mark would be good enough to finish first in Saturday’s Streator Invitational Tournament at the James Street Recreation Area.

The host Bulldogs needed to not only defeat Bartonville Limestone in the final match of the event, but also win by a handful of goals to knock the Trojans out of the top spot.

Streator came up short in that quest which allowed Mendota to grab the top prize.

The Trojans and Bulldogs started the day playing to a 0-0 draw.

“Overall, I thought we played pretty well today against three teams that are pretty solid.”

—  Nick Myers, Mendota boys soccer coach

“Anytime you’re playing early in the morning it’s tough, but it’s tough for both sides,” Mendota coach Nick Myers said. “Streator’s keeper [Andrew Vogel] made a couple of really good saves to keep the game scoreless. We had chances but just couldn’t find a way to get one past him.”

Mendota then topped Limestone 3-0 behind a hat trick from Cesar Casas and fought back to defeat Bloomington 2-1. The Trojans’ Johan Cortez tied the match at 1 late in the first half on a 35-yard strike from out front, while Danny Garcia’s tally from the left wing 20 yards out with just over nine minutes to play proved to be the match-winner. Mendota keeper Mateo Goy finished day with five saves.

[ Photos: Mendota vs Streator in the boys soccer invitational ]

“Our last match is a credit to the kids,” Myers said. “We’d just played Limestone, had about a 10-minute break and then were back on the field on a pretty warm day. We had some tired guys and had to deal with some cramps. We came out a little slow against Bloomington, which I kind of expected we might, and allowed an early goal.

“We were able to get even before halftime, but the message was, ‘We have some adversity here with a tie maybe knocking us out of the running for first. How are we going to handle it?’ The kids stepped up, played a pretty strong second half, and were able to get the game winner to keep us in the hunt for first place. Overall, I thought we played pretty well today against three teams that are pretty solid.”

In Streator’s second match, against Bloomington, Noah Russow scored on a penalty kick and Issac Fowler added a goal in a 2-1 triumph. The Bulldogs took the lead against Limestone on a goal by Fowler in the opening couple of minutes, but the Rockets roared back with four unanswered goals to earn the win.

“We knew what we had to do going into that final match with Limestone. But it’s a long day and I felt like the combination of a warm day, the sun peaking and two previous matches just took a lot of the guys,” Streator coach J.T. Huey said. “It really just came down to which team wanted more.

“I was very happy with how we played in our matches against Mendota and Bloomington, but we just weren’t able to finish it off in our last one.

“Vogel played solid in net for us and our defense four of Joe Hoekstra, Blaize Bresner, Jordy Sanchez and Aaron Henson were very solid all day long, especially against Mendota.

“One of the reasons we have this tournament and invite the teams we do is because we know this will be three competitive matches which will show us what we need to continue to work on. We saw that our defense is going to be strong and that we have the opportunity to be a good team as far as transitioning the ball from midfield into the final third. Today showed us we tend to move the ball left to right too much instead of up the field. It’s something we will continue to try and correct moving forward.”

Mendota (3-0-1) is scheduled back on the pitch in Tuesday’s home and Three Rivers Conference opener against Riverdale, while the same day Streator (1-2-1) travels to play Herscher to begin the Illinois Central Eight Conference slate.