Chicagoland Soccer

Mustangs pleased to play to a draw with talented Wildcats

By Matt Le Cren

Unsatisfied people were nowhere to be found following Downers Grove South’s 2-2 tie with Neuqua Valley Saturday in the de facto championship game of the Downers South Invite.

The thrill-a-minute match was filled with great plays, cliff-hanging drama and one scary moment that nearly knocked both sides’ best players out of action.

In the end, the draw gave Neuqua Valley the tournament title with a 2-0-1 record, while St. Charles North, which beat Lincoln-Way Central 4-3 to finish 2-1, was second.

The host Mustangs wound up third with a 1-1-1 mark and would have needed to beat Neuqua by three goals in order to claim the championship.

As it was, they nearly beat the Wildcats for the first time since May 3, 2003, when they earned a 2-1 decision at the Naperville Invitational.

“I’m very happy with the way my team played,” said Downers Grove South senior midfielder Flo Beshiri, who scored the first goal for the Mustangs. “We played very hard and Neuqua is a nationally ranked team, so I think we played them really tough. Of course, you want to win, right? But we’ll take a tie. It’s just as good.”

The result was a fitting end to a contest in which both teams attacked with vigor and defended with tenacity. The Wildcats (5-1) dominated the possession and enjoyed an incredible 34-9 edge in shots but they trailed for 27 minutes until sophomore Talise Romain scored the equalizer with 24:28 left in the second half.

Romain, who had assisted Zoey Goralski on the game’s first goal with 33:18 left in the first half, was the recipient of a perfect pass from the UCLA recruit. Goralski made a run to the right endline before slipping a pass in front to Romain, who finished from six yards out, tying the game 2-2.

“It feels good to contribute to my team and help them,” Romain said.

Despite trailing 2-1 at halftime, Romain said the Wildcats weren’t too concerned.

“I just think that we were more worried about staying together and making sure that we weren’t going to break down and let them score another one,” Romain said. “We came together as a team in getting the ball in the attack.”

As usual, Goralski played a starring role in that attack, creating plenty of havoc for Downers South’s defense. It seemed just a matter of time before the Wildcats would score, and they felt the same way.

“We definitely had most of the possession so we weren’t exactly worried,” Goralski said. “We knew we could score if we kept going. [If we] kept pressuring them we would eventually get the ball in the net. Sometimes we had some unfortunate misses.”

The Wildcats had plenty of near-misses. They had seven legitimate chances to take the lead after Romain’s strike but never did. Goralski had two shots hit the crossbar, one of which was deflected off the pipe by Downers South goalie Cassidy Hermann.

Then Hope D’Addario’s 30-yard shot from the right wing hit the bar with 3:30 remaining. That shot was from nearly the exact spot D’Addario had scored from two days before in a 3-1 win over St. Charles North.

Goralski also had one long shot sail just over the bar, while sophomore Katie Ciesiulka barely missed on two attempts and Shannon Donlon and Olivia Schmitt each had near-misses in the second half.

“The second half we played much better,” Neuqua Valley coach Joe Moreau said. “We did some smarter things in the second half to get the ball wide. We just need to get the numbers in the box sometimes, not just be satisfied with 20-yard shots.”

That the Wildcats didn’t find the back of the net more often was a testament to Hermann and Downers South defenders Jess Pikul, Brittany Dietz, Lori Niehaus and Rachel Ruggiero, who stayed tough despite all of the pressure.

Hermann, a senior in her first year between the pipes, made a mistake in coming out late on Goralski’s goal, a chip shot from 16 yards out, but she enjoyed her best game yet, stopping 14 shots, including three diving saves on Goralski.

“There were a couple slip-ups, but that’s going to happen, especially against Neuqua – they’re very, very good offensively,” Pikul said. “I’m very proud of my defensive line right now. We just stayed calm, we stuck to the plan the coach set. No one really panicked. We all played as a unit.”

To their credit, the Mustangs (4-1-2) didn’t sit back and play for the tie, even as the clock ticked down and their chance of winning the tournament title slipped away.

The defenders did a good job of triggering the offense, which produced four corner kicks in the final 10 minutes, including one that Pikul bent just over the crossbar with 6:45 to go.

But Neuqua’s back line did its job well in front of goalie Courtney Keefer, who had to make only two saves, with D’Addario blocking a 19-yard shot by Sarrah Ludwig with 25 seconds remaining.

Ludwig, one of Downers South’s most dangerous players, was held without a shot but her heads-up play led to the Mustangs’ first goal. A ball sent by Ruggiero appeared to be heading harmlessly over the endline in the right corner but rolled to a stop on the line.

Keefer and Ludwig raced to get it and Keefer won the battle, but her clearing pass up the right side was intercepted by Downers South’s Tess Grannan.

As Keefer scrambled back into her crease, Grannan crossed the ball to Emily Wauer, who tapped the ball to Beshiri for an eight-yard shot and her third goal of the season that tied the game at 1-1 with 18:39 left in the first half.

Eight minutes later, the Mustangs again scored against the run of play when Pikul blasted a 43-yard free kick into the upper right corner of the net for her first goal of the year and a 2-1 Downers South lead.

“Coach said, ‘put it on goal,’ so I was like, ‘okay, let’s do it, let’s try it,’” Pikul said. “Like I said the whole goal isn’t necessarily for me to score, but to have the rebound come to our forwards to take a shot. It just so happened it went in. I was really excited.”

Some people were surprised that the Mustangs had taken the lead, but not Beshiri.

“I was not surprised,” the Creighton-bound Beshiri said. “My team works very hard and we play together. As you can see it’s not just forwards scoring. It’s different people all over the field. We are a really talented team and we can play hard and keep up with high-ranked teams.”

The teams absorbed blows in more ways than one. Pikul and the much smaller Goralski got into a nasty collision while going for a loose ball with 17:20 remaining in the second half. Neither player saw the other and both were stunned but returned to the field only minutes later.

“I did not see her coming,” Goralski said. “It was definitely really fortunate that neither of us got hurt.”

Goralski appeared unaffected by the collision but Pikul was going to put ice on her ankle after the match.

“We did hit heads but it didn’t hurt me,” Pikul said. “What happened was when I landed I twisted [the ankle] a bit.”

Any pain the two stars had must have been masked by the excitement of playing in such an entertaining match.

“It was so much fun,” Goralski said. “Playing against competitive teams and physical teams is always fun. It’s one of the best feelings to play against a good team because it goes both ways, it’s an intense game.”

While the Mustangs weren’t able to pull the upset, the result boosted their confidence.

“It’s just a huge deal that we tied them,” Pikul said. “They’re ranked nationally. It’s a huge deal that we played with them and that we were winning for a large portion of that.

“There’s still some things that we need to work on, but [for] early in the season it just shows [the] potential that we have.”