Cougars fall victim to West Aurora scoring spree
By Chris Walker

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It was cold and windy at West Aurora’s Ken Zimmerman Field on Saturday afternoon.

Maybe that's all the Blackhawks need to score some goals?

West Aurora (8-7-5) supplied some daytime offensive fireworks, scoring six times in the opening half and cruising to a 6-3 victory over Plainfield South in a non-conference match.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a West Aurora team score six goals even in a 35-minute spurt,” Blackhawks coach Joe Sustersic said. “To play against someone like this and do this, it was like “who are they?” because we played very well with the combination plays and the connections which were done.”

The scoring was certainly long overdue for the Blackhawks as they played to a scoreless double overtime draw against Glenbard North on Thursday and were shutout 3-0 by West Chicago on Tuesday.

“We’ve been shutout nine times so to score this many goals, I wish I could’ve taken a few here and there and maybe it would’ve been a whole different season,” Sustersic said. “They gave us a lot of space and we took advantage and put on a nice show in the first half.”
 
The six goals were the most the Blackhawks have scored in a match this fall. It was also the most scored in the program since the team blanked a struggling N. Boone team in the Oregon Invitational on Aug. 26, 2011.

The Blackhawks wasted no time at in jumping on the Cougars as Daniel Rotolo assisted on a Manny Gurrola goal in the 3rd minute. It was just the beginning of what would prove to be a brilliant day for Gurrola.

Rotolo was involved once again in the 11th minute, initiating a combination play with forward Nay Sirr to make it 2-0.

“I think we moved off the ball very well today,” Rotolo said. “We communicated and were doing a lot of combination play. It’s not that we haven’t been trying to do combination plays, we’ve tried, but finally here today it worked for us.”

Despite the early lead, the Blackhawks kept their foot on the gas as Gurrola tallied goals in the 18th and 19th minute to extend the lead to 4-0. Jose Gallegos assisted on the first goal while Steve Rivera got into the action with the assist on the second one.

It was the first hat trick in Gurrola’s career. He now has 9 goals this fall.

“I just went for the ball and tried to score,” he said. “It feels good scoring a hat trick and boosting my team up.”

Gurrola said he didn’t have any plans set to celebrate the win and his personal accomplishments, although he was hopeful for a nice dinner or something.

“I hope,” he laughed. “But, I’m not sure right now.”

While the combination play and better communication were key to the team’s ability to finally score some goals, Gurrola felt the effort was better as well.

“I think we worked harder today,” he said. “I’m not sure why it was any different but we were all really trying hard to score.”

Rotolo increased the lead to 5-0 in the 26th minute with Gurrola generating the assist. Outside midfielder Juan Cerda scored the Blackhawks final goal of the game when finding the goal in unassisted fashion in the 34th minute.

“We played an outstanding first half,” Sustersic said. “In the second half there was a lot to improve on and I hope we get it out of our system before we play Glenbard East on Tuesday and then when we play Neuqua Valley in the state tournament or it’s going to be a short run.”

Plainfield South (11-7-1) finally came to life a bit in the second half.

Senior Anthony Skrip broke the shutout with 28:29 remaining when he was able to outmaneuver a defender and dribble ahead toward the right side of the goal where he buried a shot into the back of the net.

The Cougars seemingly continued the scoring groove, pulling to within 6-2 with 17:16 remaining when sophomore Dominic Nirchi scored.

Finally, they cut the lead in half with 15:50 remaining when senior Manny Sanchez converted a penalty kick.

“At halftime we talked about how we’re not a team that can just show up and win games,” Cougars coach David Brown said. “We’ve won 11 games for a reason and it’s because we play with effort and work hard and play as a team. We have no all-state players or national-level players, but have a bunch of good soccer players who work hard and we saw more of that in the second half.”

The first half, on the other hand, was forgettable and miserable.

“We did play some different guys in different positions but we also came out with zero energy and zero effort,” Brown said. “When you’re playing a good team like West Aurora that is well coached and organized you’re going to take it on the chin like we did in the first half.”

One positive for the Cougars was their ability to shutout the Blackhawks in the second half. The team received a nice lift from defenders Michael Santillo, Nhkole Thakisi, Anthony Hernandez and Nirchi.

“I thought our defense played well in the second half and actually overall we played better in the second half from top to bottom,” Brown said. “I thought you saw the team you should’ve seen in the whole game. Manny buried the PK, Skrip had the nice breakaway to get us going in the right direction. We finally started to get some things from the guys who have been performing well all season.”

Maybe a lesson was learned?

“Hopefully we learned something today,” Brown said. “We have to show up for every game from here on out. Hopefully they realize that when we put in the effort we’re a pretty decent team.”

Plainfield South concludes its regular season schedule against Minooka on Tuesday before taking on either Joliet West or Lockport in its post-season opener. The Cougars have already beaten Joliet West this season.

West Aurora close DVC and regular season play against Glenbard East on Tuesday before facing the daunting task of traveling to face Neuqua Valley, which is also playing host in the Class 3A Neuqua Valley sectional.