Chicagoland Soccer

Wildcats hold off Tigers in Naperville Invite opener

By Darryl Mellema

Just at the moment when Neuqua Valley’s Katie Ciesiulka seemed to have scored the goal to go into a commanding 2-0 lead against Wheaton Warrenville South, the Naperville Invite match got hit with a jolt of energy, sending it far higher than anyone could have imagined after the opening 53 minutes.

The Tigers responded with a score from Kate Fowee within a minute and then pushed for an equalizer, hitting a goalpost and forcing some superb saves from Wildcats’ keeper Hannah Parrish. Then Zoey Goralski scored and the Wildcats finished with a 3-1 victory at Naperville.

But if you’re a fan of Neuqua Valley (10-3-2), that change from what seems to be a comfort zone to “edge of the seat time” has happened before.

“It was a 2-0 lead for 20 seconds,” Neuqua coach Joe Moreau said. “We’ve given up a number of goals within two minutes of scoring or within five minutes of the beginning of a half or at the end of a half where we seem to let down. We’ve worked on that and have talked about that a great deal and that can’t happen.”

Moreau estimated that his team has allowed nine or 10 goals in those situations this year.

“It changes the momentum completely,” Moreau said. “You have the momentum for 20 seconds and now it’s in their hands and they’re peppering our goal.”

WW South (4-5-2) trailed 1-0 at halftime thanks to a long-range Goralski goal in the 20th minute of play.

“I’ve been practicing my left-foot shots a lot, getting them off,” Goralski said. “I was actually practicing them (Wednesday) in practice, so it was good that I did it really well in the game.”

Late in the half, the Tigers began to force their attack, and Fowee nearly equalized with a pair of strong shots.

And despite some decent attacks early in the second half, the match was beginning to turn decisively in Neuqua’s favor when Ciesiulka scored with 27 minutes left in the match.

It took the Tigers 19 seconds to score with Lexi Peterson feeding Fowee in front of goal for a short-range shot.

“I thought we saw glimpses of that in the first half, especially in the last 15 minutes,” WW South coach Guy Callipari said. “I thought we pressured extremely well and we had those chances at the end. For a moment there, we thought ‘OK, we can do this.’ Then in the second half, we were on our heels again.”

Through the match, and especially in the second half, the combination of Peterson and Fowee – playing at the top of a 4-4-2 formation, created problems for Neuqua.

“I just said to them that (Fowee’s) starting to figure it out,” Callipari said. “(Peterson) hasn’t been at full strength so they haven’t had much of an opportunity to play off of each other.

“This was the first time where I saw some sense of what they were trying to do and that they were actually reading off each other. They were trying to orchestrate something.”

Each of WW South’s frontline pairing knew they had played a strong match.

“We’ve played like that a couple of times in the season,” Fowee said. “It’s frustrating, yeah. But we come out of the game feeling like we were in it the whole time. We’re trying to use it as a constructive moment. We’re trying to think of it that we know we’re playing this well and we’re going to get a win eventually.”

Just as Moreau rattled off the key moments of a match to try to not allow a goal, Fowee was also able to recite the litany.

“I think I’ve heard it from (Callipari) and other coaches that the first five minutes of the game, the last 5 minutes of a game and first five minutes after a goal are the ones where you have to play with the most intensity,” Fowee said. “That’s when most of the goals are scored.”

The key was communication. A lot of teams talk about communication, but the Tigers’ forwards actually talked to each other during Thursday’s match.

“I talked to (Peterson) and asked if she was going to stay back or go forward and she said she was going to go forward,” Fowee said.

Peterson mentioned that a little onfield discussion was very beneficial and showed in the way the Tigers responded at the midpoint of the second half.

“The more we play together, the more we learn how each of us plays,” Peterson said. “I think us communicating tonight really helped us. I think we had a great intensity throughout the game tonight.”

Overall, despite losing, the Tigers were able to take much from the match.

“This was a great step forward,” Callipari said. “It’s not that we haven’t played this well before. But collectively, and seeing (Peterson) going back and forth and being more direct with her runs. That’s a positive and I think everybody’s inspired by that.”

Just as Neuqua was frustrated to have allowed such a quick goal after taking the 2-0 lead, WW South could take comfort in its response at that point.

“It’s not just us being inspired because we’re down and we have nothing to lose,” Callipari said. “It’s that they relaxed a little bit because they were up. The combination of those two things allowed us to come at them a little bit and then the momentum swung again.

“That’s why it was a great game. It was back-and-forth, both sides and both teams played with so much heart.”

But despite pressuring, the Tigers were unable to score. So when Goralski brought down the ball, shifted it past a defender and scored, Neuqua had a near-insurmountable 3-1 lead.

“It was definitely over my head, so I knew I had to get it back toward goal somehow,” Goralski said. “I just flicked it over her head, and tried to keep calm after I got it down and placed it in the corner.”

That second goal put a smile on the face of the Wildcats’ head coach.

“That was a very pretty goal,” Moreau said. “Even the first goal, making the run out of the back. She’s been working a lot on her shooting and that was a well-struck ball. But the third goal was just a pretty goal, an unbelievable touch and I felt badly for the defender.”

That third goal allowed the Wildcats to see out the remaining six minute with relative ease.

“It definitely took the pressure off us,” Goralski said. “It was more of an insurance goal and we could play more touch soccer.”

Both teams could look at their goalkeeping and find bright spots. For Neuqua, Parrish made a string of saves. She tipped a pair of shots over the bar and made other stops to keep the match at 2-1.

“They started pressuring us really hard and the shots were coming in fast and we were a little tired because had 20 minutes left in the game,” Parrish said.

Parrish said her concentration was at a high level, which enabled her to make the saves that she made to keep her team in the lead.

“I was 100 percent focused,” she said. “When they worked a short corner and put it in, it was hard, but I had to see it in all the way. I bobbled it a little more than I had to but, yeah, catching it is the best.”

Moreau was more than aware of the importance of Parrish’s play in Thursday’s match.

“Hannah stepped up and made some quality saves,” Moreau said. “If not, then it’s a 2-2 game and who knows where it goes to from there? She did a nice job. There was about a 10-minute period where she stepped up and played big. She’s a fearless kid, the kind of a kid you want to play goal.”

Having made those saves, Parrish was able to truly celebrate when Goralski scored the Wildcats’ third goal of the match.

“That was total relief,” Parrish said. “It took a lot of pressure off.”

For WW South, the combination of second-half goalie Olivia Linebarger and first-half keeper Abby Fuster worked to keep the Tigers in the match.

“You’ve got Olivia, the freshman, who comes in the for the second half, and she hasn’t played since fifth grade,” Callipari said. “She’s a basketball player by nature and a softball catcher. And Abby’s a sophomore and she’s just going through a bit of the ‘do I or don’t I.’ But she’ll be fine.”

One player Moreau said performed well in the midfield was senior Molly McInerney.

“I thought she had a whale of a game,” Moreau said. “She’s a kid who has been coming off the bench for some minutes. Today she played a lot of minutes and I thought she did a nice job up top. She’s not going to be flashy, but she plays hard. I thought that helped us put pressure on their back line.”

Callipari mentioned the play of some of his freshmen as standing out.

“We got good play from Tori (Adomshick) at left – she played great and she’s a freshman,” Callipari said. “A.J. (Alexis Jakuszewski) in the middle, played great, and she’s a freshman. We were just talking that in four years time, they’ll be very seasoned.”

Neuqua can top Group B in the Naperville Invitational if it defeats Andrew in a noon match on Saturday at Naperville Central.

When its play in the Naperville Invitational ends next week, the Wildcats have just one game left on their schedule, a May 8 home match with Lake Park.

“This is when you have to start finishing on restarts and defending well on restarts,” Moreau said. “We’re past that line where you can’t be giving up goals like we did today. You can’t be giving up a quality chance on a corner because we’re not paying attention. You’ve got to keep your head in the game and you’ve got to keep playing hard.”

But at this point in the season, results like Thursday’s can be significant in propelling a team through those remaining regular season matches and into the playoffs.

“It’s definitely a turning point in our season,” Goralski said. “We’ve worked really hard in this game and I saw a lot of things we worked on in practice come off really well.”

WW South, meanwhile, has played roughly half its schedule. Naperville Invitational play continues on Friday, when the Tigers play Andrew at 7 p.m. at Naperville Central.

The Tigers are also still involved in the Pepsi Showdown and conclude play there with a match against Payton at 2:30 on Saturday. When they conclude Naperville Invitational next week, they have five regular-season matches to play.

“I think we are doing the best we can with the games we are playing,” Peterson said. “I think, in the long run, playing this number of games is really going to help us.”