Saturday, Nov. 07, 2009

Triad just can't keep up with powerful St. Viator

Knights are outshot 29-3 by the Lions in Class 2A semifinal

NAPERVILLE -- When Triad Knights started the season 1-6-1, few people envisioned they would advance to the state semifinals for the first time in school history.

But Triad turned things around in impressive fashion, winning 11 of 13 matches before running into a buzzsaw in (Arlington Heights) St. Viator, which crushed the Knights 5-0 Friday afternoon in a Class 2A semifinal at North Central College.

The loss dropped Triad (14-10-2) into today's 11 a.m. third-place match against Freeport, which lost to (Peoria) Notre Dame 6-0.

"It's disappointing but I guess all the credit goes to St. Viator," Triad coach Mike Villa said. "They were just a lot better than us. We were going to have to play an extremely good game and they would probably have to be off a little bit for us to beat them."

The Lions (23-4-1) were on their game from the start, pressuring Triad relentlessly en route to outshooting the Knights by a 29-3 margin. But St. Viator went scoreless for the first 27 minutes thanks to the inspired play of Triad goalie Jake Terveer, who made 11 saves.

Terveer made three tough saves in a six-second span midway through the first half. First he dove to stop Billy Hamilton's shot from the left wing, then stopped Joe Schmidt's rebound from point-blank range. Three seconds later, Terveer saved another Hamilton attempt from outside the penalty area.

"Jake Terveer is amazing," Triad forward Brandon Nunn said. "I definitely don't think we would have been here without Jake in goal."

"The fifth goal I thought he could have stopped," Villa said. "He kind of made a mistake on that, but he probably saved five or six others that would have been goals."

Ultimately, it was only a matter of time until St. Viator broke through. Trevor Wheeler started the scoring with 13:36 left in the half, dribbling around two defenders into the box before beating Terveer to the left post from six-yards out.

Brendan King then headed in a Hamilton corner kick at the 3:44 mark and Kevin Cavers made it 3-0 just 75 seconds later with a great individual effort, first dribbling to the end line on the left side before reversing field and bending a 17-yard kick off the inside of the right post.

"I think we really weren't as prepared as we should have been," Nunn said. "Some of their goals there was absolutely nothing we could do about. It was like, 'I don't know how in the heck that just went in.'"

Cavers and King both scored their second goals of the game in the second half as the Lions became the first team this season to score five times against the Knights.

Triad had one chance to dent the scoreboard with 15:00 remaining when Nunn's corner kick found Tyler Bayne open in front. Bayne's shot, however, hit the left post and the rebound was saved.

Despite the loss, the Knights relished in making school history.

"We're never going to forget this," Nunn said. "It was fun. We had a good time at the hotel last night with team bonding stuff. After we started the season [1-6-1], we definitely had a huge turnaround, got our heads wired together and started playing as a team."