Wisconsin Soccer Central

With both his team and the Quad City Eagles having played hundreds of miles away a day earlier, Milwaukee Bavarians coach Craig Peltonen expected one side to be a little off the pace Sunday.

He just didn't think it would be his team.

Eduardo Garza scored twice in the second half, the first set up by Javier Bautista, and Bautista added an insurance goal in the final 10 minutes as Quad City beat the Bavarians 3-0 in their National Premier Soccer League home opener in Glendale.

"Just looking at the time and the travel, I thought they would have been a little sluggish," said Peltonen, whose team beat the Minnesota Twin Stars 3-0 in a Midwest Region Central Division opener Saturday afternoon in Brooklyn Park, Minn., five hours before the Eagles held off Eau Claire Aris 3-2 in La Crosse.

"But that wasn't the case. They had energy, they hustled, they beat us to balls, they were very organized, they were physical. And we were a little sluggish."

Despite all that, Peltonen couldn't help but think that the outcome might have been different if the Bavarians (1-1-0) would have finished one of their opportunities in what turned out to be a scoreless first half.

"We had a couple of good chances," Peltonen said. "One was a header, they cleared it up off the bar and it bounced straight down and they cleared it. ... Some balls deep in the box that our forwards could turn on, but couldn't get a good shot off. There were opportunities and had we maybe put one of those away it might have been a different game."

Instead, Quad City (2-0-0) pounced on a miscue and opened the scoring in the 52nd minute. Mac Wheeler (Whitnall) sent a goal kick up the middle, where Bautista picked it up, carried it into the box and slotted a pass to Garza for an easy finish.

It was just what Peltonen had warned his team about at halftime.

"I said, 'I really think they're not going to create stuff that much, but they could make something opportunistic happen off a mistake by us, so let's minimize those,' " he said. "And lo and behold, we have a goal kick that goes right up the middle on the ground right to one of their guys. We were spread out, and the ball comes right up the middle."

Six minutes later, Garza doubled the lead, finishing off a cross on the ground from the left side at the near post past Wheeler. The Bavarians tried to get back into it, with Peltonen deploying four forwards for the final 15 minutes, but that left the home side susceptible to a counter attack, and Bautista sealed the victory with his goal in the 83rd.

"The third goal, we're throwing everything forward, we're pretty opened up and we give a ball away at midfield that we probably shouldn't and now they're countering on us again with a numbers-up situation," Peltonen said.

Yves Dietrich, who started his college career at UW-Whitewater before transferring to NCAA Division I Western Illinois, posted the clean sheet for the Eagles.

"I don't think they were three goals better than us. On the day they were, because they scored three, but I don't think they're three goals better than us," Peltonen said of Quad City. "I think if one of those goals had gone in for us in the first half, it might have been a different result, a different game, but it didn't end up that way."

From the touchline

Forward and captain Chris Madsen (Brookfield Central/Marquette) was subbed out in the first half because of a nagging hamstring injury. "He played quite a bit on Saturday," Peltonen said of Madsen, who scored against Minnesota. "We started him, but he didn't quite have that push off." ... With Madsen out and Justin Laird (Hartford) not available for the match, Peltonen moved UW-Milwaukee's Aaron Horvat (Waukesha Catholic Memorial) from outside midfield up top alongside Milwaukee School of Engineering's Logan Andryk (Milwaukee Marquette). "Aaron created some things for us when we moved him up top," Peltonen said. "He was able to get behind, he was able to win some balls, he was able to hold it. He was fairly elusive and mobile up there." ... Midfielder Sam Dorf (Milwaukee Marquette), who plays at NCAA Division III Mercyhurst (Pa.), has been training with the Bavarians and likely will join the team. ... The Bavarians are off this weekend, then play host to the Madison 56ers on May 31 – Milwaukee agreed to move that match up one day after a request from the 56ers.

MILWAUKEE BAVARIANS: Mac Wheeler; Luke Davey, Michael Alfano, Dustin Page, Adam Hermsen; Sebastian Jansson, Riley Weiner, Sam Krenzien, Aaron Horvat; Logan Andryk, Chris Madsen. Substitutes: Andrew Krynski, Cheenuj Shong, Dorian O'Lochlayne, James Ashcroft, Joe Naughton.