Lack of execution dooms Blackhawks in Batavia

 

By Darryl Mellema

In one sense, West Aurora suffered harshly in its 4-1 defeat at Batavia. After all, the Blackhawks gave up goals on the first two shots they faced and rallied mightily after falling behind 3-0.

But overall, there were serious things Joe Sustersic wanted to talk about with his team as they gathered far away from other listening ears in the north end zone of Batavia’s stadium at the conclusion of the game.

“We did not execute,” Sustersic said. “If you don’t execute, you will be executed and that’s what happened here today. We’re a young team and we have a lot of inexperience. But when the boys think they know more about things that those who are older, things like this are going to happen.”

The Blackhawks opened the match without starting goalkeeper Abel Diaz, who hurt a toe at a get-together over the weekend.

“He hurt it because he was goofing around at a family party and he stubbed his toe,” Sustersic said.

Diaz’s toe was one-and-a-half times as large as it should have been, Sustersic said, meaning Fernando Ortiz played in goal against the Bulldogs.

Ortiz made some strong saves, but also struggled, as with Cam Callipari’s shot in the first half that found the back of the net for the opening goal of the match. That goal came on Batavia’s first shot of the game. But other than that goal, the Blackhawks were solid in the first 40 minutes of play.

“I think we did a good job of holding the tempo and in possessing the ball,” Sustersic said. “We had a chance to take a 1-0 lead a few times, and it didn’t happen. Then when they took a shot, they scored.”

After halftime, it was time for the entire Blackhawks team to have a collective moment of naivety. Warned as halftime concluded that Batavia would try to hit them with a counter attack when possible, West Aurora proceeded to surrender a counter attack goal less than two minutes into the half. Batavia led 2-0 and had only taken two shots in the game.

“Two of their four goals were counters,” Sustersic said. “If we just kept the guys in front of us and contained them, everything would have been fine. It’s just some mental mistakes. I’ll give credit to (Batavia.) They took advantage of our mistakes and made us pay for them.”

The match got marginally worse before it got better for the Blackhawks. After Anton Kondourov scored the hosts’ third goal, West Aurora rallied. Within two minutes of Kondourov’s goal, Roberto Sanchez finished a multi-player move, taking a Mario Alvarez pass and scoring from near the right post.

That Sanchez goal got the Blackhawks rolling and the match began to ebb from end to end. Alvarez and Danny Talancon had good efforts on goal and Josue Martinez had a free kick late in the match that forced a save from Batavia goalie Ben Steskal.

“I think that individually, more than half the kids would say that they played sub par tonight,” Sustersic said. “I think (Talancon), Roberto Chavez and David Herrera and David Quinones all played well.”

Batavia had its moments late in the match too, including a fourth goal, scored by Sam Schlicher with 3:57 to play.