Chicagoland Soccer

Redwings fall to Metea Valley in tourney semifinals
By Matt Le Cren

While defending state runner-up Naperville North and Neuqua Valley are nationally ranked and Waubonsie Valley is reloading again, it would be easy to overlook what Metea Valley is doing.

That would be a serious mistake.

In just their second season as a varsity program, the Mustangs are quickly making a name for themselves with a blistering offense, airtight defense and the ability to win the close games as well as the blowouts.

Metea Valley (6-0) has outscored its first six opponents 23-2 and advanced to a tournament championship game for the first time after edging Benet 2-1 Tuesday in the semifinals of the St. Francis Springfest tournament at Olympic Park in Schaumburg.

The Mustangs will take on York (4-0), which beat Burlington Central 3-0 in the other semifinal, in Wednesday’s 1 p.m. title game.

“This tournament is good for us being it’s got a lot of schools that are not really around us, so it’s good to have different competition then we’re used to,” Metea Valley senior forward Kristina Tomaras said. “We’ve been working really hard and our goal is to get as far as we can and just win every game. We’re doing that so far so hopefully we can keep it up.”

Tomaras, a Missouri State recruit, has led the way with a team-leading eight goals, which equals her total from 2011. She and Alyssa Fox scored goals in Tuesday morning’s 2-0 quarterfinal victory over previously unbeaten St. Francis and Tomaras triggered one of the most bizarre goals anyone has seen early in the second half against Benet.

With a blustery wind at their backs, the Mustangs forced a corner kick and Tomaras sent the ball in from the right side. Her serve hit the top of the right post and bounced high in the air, but instead of being blown over the crossbar, the ball came down in front of the left post, where junior Jenna Kentgen knocked it in.

“That was weird,” Tomaras said. “I’ve never seen that before. I didn’t even know that was possible but I guess the wind took it in our favor. Our goal for corner kicks is to get it inside the six, so I guess it was just luck. The wind was strong.”

The Mustangs increased their lead to 2-0 four minutes later on another goal they probably shouldn’t have gotten. Kentgen fired a low 15-yard shot from the right wing that was saved by Benet goalie Christina Stopka. But Stopka, a sophomore, had the ball squirt out from under her and McKenzie Sheesley alertly finished for Metea.

“We told the girls at halftime we saw in the first half [Stopka] was having a bit of trouble holding the ball,” Metea Valley coach Pat Feulner said. “So we told them to crash the goal and make sure that she’s got the ball in her hands, and both goals we scored off rebounds, so we did what we needed to do and that’s a good thing.”

Ironically, Metea had squandered several excellent opportunities and Stopka made five saves on shots that were more difficult than Kentgen’s.

“It was a tale of two goalies,” Benet coach Bob Gros said. “One [Metea’s Megan Geldernick] was making great saves, the other was mishandling balls she should have had. But Christina is a sophomore and she’s getting better.”

The Redwings (4-2) made things interesting down the stretch as Catherine Caniglia drilled an 18-yard shot against the wind off the underside of the crossbar to cut the gap to 2-1 with four minutes remaining.

Benet had one last opportunity to tie it with a 23-yard free kick from the left wing in the dying seconds. Madie Burke served the ball to the right post to Jessica Smetana, who wasn’t able to get her header on frame.

“She struck it really well,” Gros said of Burke. “She’s left-footed so I thought it would be better to have a right-footed in-swinger but I let the girls decide. But it was a great shot. We were right there.”

Earlier, Geldernick, who had five saves, made a diving stop on a 15-yard bullet from Meghan O’Hara and jumped high to catch a 40-yard drive from Katie Liber that was headed for the upper right corner.

“I thought we played very well,” Gros said. “We certainly had our chances. It was a game also affected by the wind. I thought both sides did a good job of attempting to play to the advantage and disadvantage of it.”

Benet (4-2) had opened the tournament with a 7-0 rout of Addison Trail on Monday and received a bye in the quarterfinals, meaning they were more rested than Metea. But the Redwings couldn’t take advantage. They will face Burlington Central in the third-place match on Wednesday at 1 p.m. on Field 3.

“I’m not disappointed with the result, but after a while you’ve got to stop saying that with these close games,” Gros said. “You’ve got to figure out a way to win them.”

That’s what Metea Valley did. After sandwiching a 7-0 rout of Joliet West and an 8-0 drubbing of Streamwood around a 1-0 win over Batavia, the Mustangs have won three straight two-goal decisions the past two days.

“I give credit to the kids,” Feulner said. “We [played] two nice teams today and did a nice job of holding them off. [Benet] was fired up to play us. They’re a nice squad.”

After leading the team with 13 goals last spring, Kentgen already has five goals despite missing two games with the flu.

“Kentgen is hard-nosed up top and she’ll score her share,” Feulner said. “Between Kristina and Kentgen up front and Fox, we can put them in and [sophomore Tyler] Proszowski has racked up some points.

“It’s nice because we have five or six players that we can slot up and they’re all dangerous. We can come at you from all sides.”

For Tomaras, that means fun times.

“Everyone has been really excited to go out and score in games,” Tomaras said. “It’s not all me. We have a lot of good passers on our team, so it’s really easy to score when you have good balls to you.”

Metea’s defense has been solid, registering four shutouts thus far thanks to the play of Geldernick between the pipes and the back line of senior Alexis McKay, junior Samantha Butler, sophomores Tracey McCoy and Rachel Stoffregen.

“Our defense has been really good this year,” Tomaras noted. “Since we’ve all been together for a year, we all know how each other plays and it’s just easier.”

This season will also be the crowning achievement of Tomaras, McKay, midfielder Holly Krol, defender Bianca Mulaikal and defender/midfielder Hannah Thayer, who made up the program’s first senior class.

“It’s exciting because we’re the first senior class, so it’s kind of cool to see how far everything has come,” Tomaras said. “Our [boys basketball team did pretty good [reaching the sectional finals], so we have high expectations to live up to now that we have all four classes. We have no more excuses.”