Tigers fall in overtime to West Aurora

 

By Darryl Mellema

When you see a player put the ball into his own net, which is how Wheaton Warrenville South dropped Tuesday’s DuPage Valley Conference finale with West Aurora – the immediate reaction is to be unhappy with the player in question.

But unfolding the sequence leading to the unfortunate ending shows a much more complex equation.

The Tigers lost the ball in their defending third and were scrambling to get back into position. West Aurora played the ball outside to the left wing and a strong cross by Mike Vazquez, played on the ground at the top of the 6-yard box, cut out both the goalkeeper and more defending players before being inadvertently knocked in by a defender.

The own goal ended a stretch of play, but that was just the punctuation at the end of the sentence – and the exclamation point from a West Aurora point of view that ended a 2-1 match 77 seconds into a second sudden-death overtime.

“We’re working back hard and we’re trying to recover from an earlier mistake or two and it’s unfortunate that your effort backfires slightly and the ball finds the back of the net,” Wheaton Warrenville South coach Guy Callipari said.

“That’s heartbreaking when you get this far into a game and that game is in the balance and it ends that way. But when you put the ball in the box, anything is possible.”

The Tigers (7-11-3, 1-6 DVC) played well in large stretches of Tuesday’s match and were well worth their 1-0 halftime lead, through a Dan Tomazin goal, struck from nearly 35 yards.

The ball went over West Aurora’s goalie, under the bar and into the side netting.

“Certainly it was opportunistic and he’s got a strong leg, there’s no question about it,” Callipari said of Tomazin. “I would think, knowing Danny, that he’s not that selfish and he was trying to play somebody at the back post. But the ball carried a bit and surprised the keeper as well.”

Attacking moves were hard to find through the 80 minutes. Max Carey had a sharp shot saved with 3 minutes left in the first half, and Nate Fuster nearly found Dan Burns with 8 minutes left in the second half.

But passing connections, especially in the penalty area, were almost non-existent. Even in the midfield, the teams spent much of the 80 minutes hammering the ball back-and-forth.

“It really became a tennis match,” Callipari said. “It’s difficult. The field narrow and it wasn’t holding us. So you became more direct in your style of play just because it was dangerous to do otherwise. You couldn’t play in the midfield, and it wasn’t the style of play either (West Aurora coach Joe Sustersic) or I would like to play.”

With all their home games on artificial turf and many road games played on plastic grass as well, the experience of adjusting to grass always takes some time. Wheaton Warrenville South hadn’t played on natural grass in six matches, since visiting Batavia on Sept. 27.

“The speed of play is different,” Callipari said. “The footing’s different. You wait for a ball to ‘bite’ and it doesn’t and skips away from you. All your reactions are different.”

Callipari wasn’t using the field surface as a reason for how the team played or how the match progressed. “The majority of it is still the same,” he said. “Our supporting and our communicating to each other. We did such a great job for such a long period of time.”

And it was in some of those areas where the Tigers needed to be better against the Blackhawks (16-5-1, 4-3). “We needed more flank play and more support by our outside midfielders. It didn’t happen today” Callipari said.

Wheaton Warrenville South has a Thursday match against Wheaton Academy to finish its season. Although a nonconference contest, the match is always a good rivalry contest.

“Wheaton Academy still stands with the Wheaton Cup being available,” Callipari said. “(Wheaton Academy) beat Wheaton North 1-0, so that brings us back into it. That there is a lot to play for this late in the season is going to be an advantage for us, hopefully.”