Those who predicted the Evanston Invitational would be a blankety-blank good soccer tournament had no idea how right they`d be.
Despite playing poorly, No. 3 Libertyville walked away with a 0-0 tie against strong Evanston Saturday. That gave the Wildcats (2-0-4) the tournament title based on a better record than host Evanston (4-0-1) in varsity and JV play.
”Ties are better than losses,” said Libertyville coach Andy Bitta, who definitely should know. ”We`re lucky to get away with a tie.”
Indeed, Libertyville was fortunate that all of Evanston`s numerous opportunities were either sent wide or stopped by goalie Dan Verbeten.
The shot that looked like a sure goal came in the second quarter when Libertyville`s Chris Slago kicked a ball off the line after Verbeten was caught far out of his net in an attempted clearing effort.
”They`ve got to get the ball in the net,” said Bitta when asked about Evanston`s opportunities. ”We missed a couple of nice opportunities, too. But they had more chances than we did.”
The misses, coupled with Peter Vroegh`s ejection late in the game, irked Evanston coach Tom Chmela.
”We missed about six or seven; they missed about two or three,” he said. ”The bottom line is, it`s 0-0. In soccer, unlike other sports, the better team doesn`t always win. You could dominate the whole game and, boom, there`s one shot and a goal and you get beat.”
Shots taken at Verbeten and Wildkits goalkeeper Kirk Sedenbecker weren`t exactly blasts that should have gone in. In a match of two supposed quality teams, poor midfield play, especially by Libertyville, made what should have been an exciting game a yawner.
”Today is a good example of a Tom Chmela team,” said Bitta. ”They`re always very aggressive.”
Chmela, who runs a soccer camp in Libertyville, knows most of the Wildcat players.
”The knowledge of what they would be able to do helped my team,” he said. ”We picked it up right away, but we just couldn`t finish.
”Some Libertyville parents came up to me at the end of the game and said, `You got the best of us today.` Yes, but we didn`t win.”
To Libertyville, a scoreless tie was great, especially since midfielder Kevin Kotek (ankle) and forward Joel Greene (hamstring) were sidelined. Yet junior striker Adrian Mihalic, the Wildcats` scoring machine, was marked well by Evanston junior Karim Dure.
”Dure was a midfielder-striker on our sophomore team,” said Chmela.
”We told him that his chance on the varsity would come on defense. He did a really nice job.”
In keeping with the program, Barrington and Brother Rice played to a 0-0 tie earlier in the day.
