Boys soccer: Peotone strikes early, Streator strikes late in 5-3 Bulldogs victory

STREATOR - The Peotone Blue Devils dominated the first handful of minutes.

The Streator Bulldogs dominated the last handful of minutes ... and that made all the difference in the hosts’ 5-3, Illinois Central Eight Conference boys soccer victory early Thursday evening at the SHS Athletic Fields.

Peotone (6-4-1 overall, 2-1 ICE) stunned the Bulldogs in the opening five minutes and change, scoring a pair of goals — the first from junior Geno Petrizzi (senior Niko Balaskas assist), the second courtesy of Balaskas (unassisted) — to take a 2-0 advantage.

“When we put passes together, when we’re able to connect and keep the ball on the ground, we’re going to be a dangerous team like that,” Blue Devils coach Caley Michalak said of the fast start. “But we’re still trying to figure out how to do that for 80 minutes.”

Streator (11-2 overall, 3-1 ICE) shook off the stun and got to work erasing that two-goal deficit, taking control around the midway point of the 40-minute first half and by halftime turning things around to take a 3-2 lead into the break. Keaton Yedinak (unassisted) scored the first of the three first-half Bulldogs goals, followed by the equalizer (Connor Decker assist) and then the laser-beam, go-ahead (Noah Russow assist) strike.

“They punched us in the mouth in the first five minutes,” Streator coach J.T. Huey said, “and I didn’t know what team would show up after that. They could have easily just tanked and let Peotone keep hammering on them. But they persevered, they stayed positive, they communicated, they stayed aggressive, and slowly the possession started to turn.

“I think it was about 20 minutes left [in the first half] that we started taking possession, we started putting shots on. That’s when the game turned.”

Like the Bulldogs in the first half, though, the Blue Devils didn’t feel like throwing in the towel, coming out of the break and tying the contest on Petrizzi’s second strike of the game. And there at 3-3 the game stood until just under 10 minutes remained, when Grabowski completed his hat trick with his third goal of the evening, a shot off a Moe Bacon assist that proved to be the match-winner.

“We started out the first 10-15 minutes of the game really rough,” Grabowski said, “but about three-quarters of that first half we were playing a lot of possession and had some nice through-balls. The second half was kind of even, but we had some really nice through-balls at the end that gave us the lead.”

It was another in what is becoming a long string of dominant performances for Streator’s No. 20.

“I would argue his speed and his physicality right now are unmatched in the area,” Huey said of Grabowski.

With 2:40 left, Landon Muntz got credit for an insurance own goal with a perfect, front-and-center corner kick that in the crowded chaos hit a Blue Devils defender and caromed in to complete the scoring.

Peotone keeper Jackson Bergeron finished with five saves out of 10 shots on goal. His counterpart, Streator’s Noah Camp, recorded nine saves out of a dozen shots on net.

“I think first half we kind of lost it and got back on our heels when we scored those first two goals,” Michalak said. “Credit to Streator, they have no quit in them, but we found a way to come back and found some more in that second half. Unfortunately, we just weren’t able to capitalize and get the win.”

The Blue Devils are scheduled to begin a long homestand next Tuesday starting against Kankakee.

The Bulldogs visit powerhouse Mendota on Monday before returning home next Wednesday to play host to another former North Central Illinois Conference rival, Kewanee.