Ciesla kicks off Neuqua's 12th straight regional title
By Matt Le Cren

Neuqua Valley sure started Saturday’s regional championship game off on the right foot.

Lauren Ciesla’s right foot, to be exact.

Ciesla scored early in each half and Katie Ciesiulka found the back of the net just before halftime as the Wildcats knocked off Naperville Central 3-1 to win the Class 3A Bolingbrook Regional.

It was the 12th consecutive regional title for Neuqua Valley (16-3-1), which next faces defending state champion Naperville North (17-0-2) in a Bolingbrook Sectional semifinal at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.

“That was the plan, to get the goals early,” Ciesla said. “I felt like it really gave us momentum and it kind of slowed them down. And it gave us more confidence to kind of go and finish them off.”

Ciesla, a sophomore midfielder who was limited by illness and injury during the regular season, opened the scoring just 93 seconds into the contest when she booted home Ciesiulka’s cross from the left wing.

“The first goal, I know that when they take it down the end I just want to get in the box and just have the opportunity to score,” Ciesla said. “Katie Ciesiulka did a really nice job getting it against the endline and finding me in the middle. It just happened that I was open and not marked and I just finished it.”

Seeing as how the fourth-seeded Wildcats and fifth-seeded Redhawks (15-5-3) had played to a scoreless tie during the regular season, such an early strike in what figured to be a tight match proved to be a huge psychological blow.

“It’s definitely awesome,” Ciesiulka said. “It helps us out a lot. We needed to relax a little bit in the middle but it definitely helped us get going.

“We definitely were trying to score early because we know that they’re a very good team and we just needed to play to feet and I thought we did.”

But Naperville Central recovered nicely and nearly tied the game when Veronica Ellis caught Neuqua goalie Hannah Parrish 10 yards off her line and launched a 40-yard shot that went over the head of Parrish but just wide of the left post with 8:35 left in the half.

“I don’t know how that ball didn’t go in,” Naperville Central coach Ed Watson said. “My arms were up in the air. That was a tie game.”

Instead, the Wildcats delivered another dagger to double their lead with 1:00 remaining before intermission.

Gianna Dal Pozzo, who didn’t score but created multiple opportunities with her deft passing, sent a lead pass into the left side of the Central box intended for Ciesiulka. Hershik charged out and went down to smother the ball, only to have it get past her as Ciesiulka and Redhawks defender Kayla Rowan got tangled up as they went by Hershik.

Ciesiulka got to the ball first and scored into the empty net. Watson protested unsuccessfully that Hershik was fouled on the play.

“It was definitely a great ball by ‘G,’” Ciesiulka said. “I was definitely offsides a little bit and then I had to scoot back, so I honestly couldn’t even remember how it happened.”

The Wildcats wasted no time in pressing their advantage as Ciesla scored again just 20 seconds after the break, again with her right foot and as a result of some great passing.

This time Kiley Czerwinski started the play when she passed up the right wing to Dal Pozzo in the Redhawks’ box. Dal Pozzo made a quick move on a defender and slid a pass in front to the charging Ciesla, whose one-timer beat Hershik to the far post and a 3-0 Neuqua lead.

It was the second two-goal game for Ciesla, who nearly had her first hat trick when she rattled the crossbar with a 15-yard drive with 13:20 to go.

“There’s really no words to explain that right now,” Ciesla said. “I’m kind of speechless, but it’s not my talent. It’s everyone’s talent combined that makes me be able to score like that.

“It’s all the great players playing around me that [enable] me to make it happen. I just finish it off for them.”

The return of Ciesla gives the loaded Wildcats yet another scoring option.

“We missed her a lot during the season with injuries and everything,” Neuqua Valley coach Joe Moreau said. “She’s a solid player and a smart player so it obviously helps to have her back.”

The Redhawks are not known for being a comeback team, so the three-goal deficit proved to be fatal. Neuqua joined Naperville North as the only squads to score that many goals on the Redhawks this season.

“The worst time to give up goals are two minutes on either side of halves,” Watson said. “We gave up three of them and we can’t beat anybody giving up three goals. We only scored four [three] times during the season.

“I will say this for our girls: they battled their rear ends off. Right to the end, they battled.”

That they did. The Redhawks actually outshot the Wildcats 10-5 in the second half and were the aggressors for much of that time, though they didn’t have much to show for it.

Parrish made five of her eight saves after intermission, with most coming on shots from distance by Veronica Ellis and Autumn Muckenhirn.

The Redhawks earned seven corner kicks, including five in the second half, but weren’t able to take advantage as Dal Pozzo and Hope D’Addario came back to help with clearing the crosses out of danger.

Aside from the corner kicks, the Wildcats’ back line led by Kelly Keckler, Sophia Moreau, Dannah Williams and Abbey Mazur did prevent the Redhawks from penetrating the box or getting any open shots in transition.

The one time they broke down led to a penalty kick, which Ellis missed wide to the left at the 29:36 mark of the second half. Ellis, though, kept plugging away and averted the shutout when she beat Parrish with an 18-yard shot while falling down.

“I thought we played well overall in the first half and then in the second half we obviously defended a lot,” Joe Moreau said. “We weren’t possessing the ball. They were winning balls. I thought we played very solid in the back. I thought Hannah played solid back there.”

The Indiana-bound Ellis played her last game for Central, as did Muckenhirn and fellow starters Sabrina Cisneros and Amanda Alberts and reserves Nikki Connors and Nikki Alore.

“Coming off of last year where I think expectations were so high as the season progressed and then coming in this year with some question marks – some holes that needed to be filled [such as the] leading scorer [and an] all-state goalkeeper graduating, I thought our kids did a great job finding a way to make this season their own,” Watson said. “They all accepted their roles.”

For the Wildcats, they get a shot at redemption against Naperville North, which knocked them out of the playoffs the past two seasons, including in the sectional semifinals last year.

The Huskies edged the Wildcats 2-1 on April 26 in a Naperville Invitational semifinal.

“[Winning the regional] feels great,” Ciesiulka said. “We’re trying to take it one game at a time. I think we’re just trying to play with a lot of heart and that’s what we did today.”

The celebration was muted and short-lived.

“Now we have to put this game behind us,” Ciesla said, “and focus in on the next task we have ahead of us.”