Wolf-to-Suker combo nails down Mustangs' win over Oswego East

By Eddie Burns

Downers Grove South was cruising right along during its opener when adversity struck, but instead of folding up shop the Mustangs showed some grit, which is a welcomed site for coach Jon Stapleton.

The Mustangs had a two-goal lead at Oswego East on Wednesday afternoon as the match approached the 64th minute and Downers South was in complete control.

However, the Wolves suddenly managed to score twice in 41 seconds to pull even.

Downers South regained its composure and didn’t panic. The Mustangs’ calmly and patiently began to regain control and their efforts were rewarded when Kyle Wolf helped set up Nick Suker’s winning goal in the 75th minute to give the Mustangs a 3-2 victory in Oswego.

Suker said the fact that the Wolves (1-1) were even in the match at that point was partly his fault.

“I messed up when I just didn’t stay with my man on their first goal and it all just snowballed,” Suker said. “But I brought it back there at the end and was just lucky to get another chance to put one away. Kyle and I worked a little combination and put it past the goalie.”

Wolf’s pass into the box forced Suker to leave his feet, but he managed to slide the ball into the net.

“Suker’s goal with him leaving his feet like that was great to see,” Stapleton said. “One thing I was proud of is that we played really well the last three weeks last season and maybe today that was a little bit of the product of our guys coming back. The goals we scored were the type we gave up last year. I think that is a great sign to see these seniors make sure we were able to get a positive result. I felt we deserved it today.”

The Mustangs (1-0) did dominate play. Downers South went into the wind in the opening half, but it would have been hard to have known that by the evidence of the 11 shots the Mustangs put on net.

Downers South’s persistence paid off in the 31st minute when midfielder Joe McLean stole a clearing attempt and slid the ball to Wolf, who calmly sized up a shot and easily beat Oswego East goalie Cody Sumner.

“Kyle showed a lot of patience and that was nice to see,” Stapleton said.

The Mustangs led 1-0 at intermission and increased their lead to 2-0 when Suker stole a pass and played a ball to Zach Baleski in stride and Baleski did the rest in the 52nd minute.

At this point, the Wolves had not done much offensively, but they managed to string together a pair of goals to pull even with 14 minutes remaining.

“We can’t lose concentration like that,” McLean said. “We always talk about the big 5. The 5 minutes after we score and the 5 minutes after we allow a score can create big momentum swings and we got caught today.”

The Mustangs did regroup and pulled out the victory.

“Hopefully this is something we can take and learn from,” Stapleton said. “The best thing is you learn from a positive result. You go home feeling good, but at the same time, you know that there is a lot of work that remains to be done.”

The Mustangs are coming off a subpar year, which ended with a hard-fought loss to Naperville North in a Class 3A regional championship. The core of last year’s group was juniors and they have matured into seniors.

The experience was evident in the midfield where Suker, McLean, Cory Mosiman and Gabriel Diaz were strong. The Mustangs were without Conor Kelch because of a red card he received in the Naperville North match last season.

Sophomore Sam LeLonde and junior Joe Sombeck looked solid as well.

Senior goalie Sam Hadley did not see many shots, but his leadership in the back will be important if the Mustangs plan to return to their winning ways.

“We might not be happy with the way we played, but these games are valuable,” McLean said.

“A match like this shows us that we know what it takes to come from behind. We can take a lot from this game.”

The match also was a reunion of sorts because Oswego East coach Steve Szymanski was Stapleton’s lead assistant when the Mustangs won the Class AA championship in 2004.

“We knew everything they were going to do, but they just executed it better than our plan against it,” Szymanski said. “I like how we responded. Last year we were down 2-0 at halftime and we responded and tied it up.”

Last year’s match ended in a 2-2 draw, but this year the Mustangs rallied for the win.

“I have to give this group a lot of credit for the way they came back,” Stapleton said. “As a group to be able to come back, regroup and get a positive result was definitely a step in the right direction for us.”