Noah Russow, Streator advance past Ottawa in 2A regional semifinal

OTTAWA – Last week, the Streator and Ottawa boys soccer teams met with the Pirates posting a one-goal victory over the host Bulldogs.

In Tuesday’s postseason rematch on the King Field pitch, subsectional No. 7-seeded Streator pushed to a two-goal halftime lead over No. 2-seeded Ottawa and held on for a 4-2 victory in the Class 2A Ottawa Regional semifinal.

Streator (9-14-2) advances to play No. 3 Galesburg at 11 a.m. Saturday in the championship match. The Silver Streaks defeated No. 6 La Salle-Peru 1-0 in the second semifinal. Ottawa ends the season at 13-8.

“Yes, last week was an entirely different situation than today, but, come on, it’s Streator and Ottawa. We were just nowhere close to the level we needed to be at last week against them, but today was a complete 360,” Streator coach J.T. Huey said. “I give my guys credit; they’ve come to every practice since we lost to Ottawa and worked on the adjustments we felt we needed to make to win this match. We wanted to come out strong and fast, and that’s exactly what the guys did.

“Today we used the width of the field, we were aggressive and not back on our heels. That said, Ottawa had their bursts here and there, but I feel we did a good job of managing ourselves through that. Another big key was that we finished the ball. It’s awesome to make plays and have really good chances, but if you don’t put the ball in the net those don’t mean a whole lot.”

“I feel like the first 15 minutes of the match set the tone. All of the things we didn’t do against them last week we did today.”

—  Noah Russow, Streator senior striker

The Bulldogs opened the scoring in the 17th minute when David Paton one-timed a pass off the right wing from Noah Russow past Ottawa keeper Connor Diederich (two saves). Ten minutes later, Diederich was injured on a collision and did not return to action. Landry Brenbarger (two saves) took over between the pipes.

Streator made it 2-0 in the 30th minute when Jordy Sanchez streaked down the center of the pitch and headed in a crossing pass from Russow.

“Last week we had a pretty good idea how we wanted to play against Ottawa, but to be honest, we really didn’t play that well, and they beat us,” said Russow, who continues to deal with a knee injury suffered early this season. “We didn’t possess the ball, we were slow to the ball, and we didn’t have the energy we needed. Today was a complete turnaround from that. We came out super strong right from the start and were able to get a couple quick goals which raised our energy even more.

“I feel like the first 15 minutes of the match set the tone. All of the things we didn’t do against them last week we did today. We talked at halftime about how they were going to come out very strong to start the second half and they did. But we were able to maintain our lead and eventually finish off the win.”

Just three minutes after Streator keeper Andrew Vogel (five saves) stopped a Pirates’ penalty kick, Evan Snook booted a PK past him in the 44th minute to make it 2-1. Streator countered with Paton’s second tally of the match, one where he outraced two Ottawa defenders before scoring on a hard low shot, in the 55th minute off Russow’s third assist.

Ottawa once again made it a one-goal contest in the 65th minute when Jorge Lopez leapt high in the center of the box and headed in a cross by Rory Moore.

Russow then closed out his fantastic night and the match with a PK goal with just over six minutes remaining.

Statistically, Ottawa held a 14-13 lead in total shots and corner kicks (8-6), while Streator led in shots on target 8-7.

“Streator came out with a very aggressive start, they were ready,” Ottawa coach Kevin Olesen said. “We didn’t play a complete match. We had glimpses of what we are capable of, but to Streator’s credit they came out guns blazing and played very effective. Not matching Streator’s intensity early put us two goals down, and while we were able to cut to one a couple times, we just were never able to crawl all the back.

“I’m proud of the effort we showed in the second half, and that’s the effort I saw from this group almost all season. We had a really good season, accomplished a lot and showed a ton of improvement. This group of seniors has really helped raise the bar on how what’s to be expected of the Ottawa boys soccer program and the standards that we expect to meet. The season obviously didn’t end like we wanted to, but I’m happy with the improvement we showed from start to finish.

“We have a lot to build on for next season.”