Mustangs move on to Pepsi Showdown semifinals
By Dave Miller

 

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Metea Valley passed its way into the Pepsi Showdown semifinals.

After their offense was bottled up early, the Mustangs saw two on-the-mark passes lead to two goals in quick succession in the first half. The hookups popped open an eventual 3-0 quarterfinal victory against Stevenson Saturday afternoon at Olympic Park in Schaumburg.

Top-seeded Metea Valley (12-1) struck first when Alexis McKay led Kristina Tomaras, who got behind the defense, with a pass down the right side. Tomaras took advantage of the setup, kicking the ball into the left side of the goal to put her team up 1-0 in the 28th minute.

“I saw that the goalie was near post so I decided to hit it far post,” Tomaras said. “We have to make runs up top wide and then we’re supposed to go across and diagonal, so when Alexis has the ball we know to make that run wide and she leads us in and then we just hit it far post if we can. It was a good ball.”

Less than three minutes later, it was Alena Sidwell’s turn to deliver a highlight-worthy assist. The freshman rushed the ball toward the middle of the net against a defender, then pushed the ball to Jenna Kentgen on the right. Kentgen cut a shot into the left side of the net to give the Mustangs a 2-0 lead.

“Alena just took ’em on, which is what we’re supposed to do,” Kentgen said. “As soon as I saw the defenders break from me to go to her, I knew I should make that run and call for the ball, and she found me perfectly.”

The passes by McKay and Sidwell were the kind that makes a coach smile.

“Oh gosh, it was beautiful,” Metea Valley coach Pat Feulner said. “They were nice balls. We can move the ball, there’s no doubt.”

Ninth-seeded Stevenson (5-3-1) came at the Wildcats hard early. Patriots coach Mark Schartner yelled repeatedly for his players to shoot the first time they approached the net, and they eventually listened.

The Patriots put a trio of shots on goal in the opening 11 minutes, but Metea Valley goalkeeper Megan Geldernick saved each one. 

Meanwhile, Metea Valley had trouble maintaining possession of the ball and advancing it against the Patriots in the early stages of the match.  

“I think they saw our last game because we had a little bit of trouble with a deep sweeper when we played Wheaton Academy,” Feulner said. “They made an adjustment at the beginning of the game and stuck their sweeper back when they saw they couldn’t run with us and stuck their sweeper way back. All of sudden I looked up today and there’s a sweeper 30 yards behind everybody. It took us a little while to get accustomed to it, and not try to shove the ball up the middle. Once we figured it out the game kind of changed.”

“You have to learn to switch around your game depending on what they do,” Tomaras said.

Metea Valley wanted one more goal to put away the game and it received it in the second half. Tomaras scored her team-high 16th goal of the season off an assist from Hannah Thayer in the 65th minute.

“When they came at us we knew we had to come back harder,” Tomaras said. “It feels good to beat a top team. We want to keep proving to everyone that we can stay on top.”

“We kept going at ’em and that’s what we need to do,” Feulner said. “We need to keep pressure on people. The only game we dropped this year is because we didn’t go at ’em, and I think the girls have figured that out. They’re pretty dangerous when we go at people.”

Geldernick recorded her ninth shutout of the season.
 
Kentgen said the Mustangs are enjoying defending their No. 1 seed. They’ll meet fourth-seeded Loyola in the semifinals Saturday.
“It’s nice,” Kentgen said. “This is our second year and we’re just proving ourselves right now. We have to keep our performance high up, but we can do it.”