Wildcats rally for DVC draw with Glenbard East

By Eddie Burns

There are no secrets once teams get into conference play.

That was the case on Thursday night when Glenbard East and West Chicago hooked up for their annual DuPage Valley Conference meeting.

There was plenty of energy and passion displayed on both sides. The match was so competitive and even that it needed two 10-minute overtime periods, but after 100 minutes nothing much was decided as the match ended tied at 1-1.

"We should have won," said West Chicago midfielder Mary Rojas, who scored in the 72nd minute to tie a match that was scoreless at intermission.

"I think we played well enough to win, but we have no choice but to settle for a tie – it is something I can deal with."

Glenbard East (3-3-1, 0-1-1 DVC) struck first in the early stages of the second half when Lindsey Paganucci assisted Erin Mrazek's goal to give the Rams a 1-0 advantage.

After it had the lead, Glenbard East seemed content packing nine players back on defense, which made it a lot more difficult for West Chicago (4-6-1, 0-0-1) to run its possession game.

"Glenbard East came prepared and they knew what style of play we prefer and they packed it," West Chicago coach Cesar Gomez said.

"It is hard if you are not patient to play against nine in the back and we were not patient."

But the Wildcats were relentless in creating scoring chances. West Chicago's hard work paid off when Meagan Radloff was fouled 40 yards from the goal.

On the ensuing free kick, Radloff slipped a pass to Rojas, who ripped a shot that banged off the crossbar and barely over the line.

The referee originally did not signal goal, but the linesman ruled that the ball had crossed the line, thus tying the match.

"It was surprising to me that they ruled that it had gone in," Rojas said. "I'm glad that I had the confidence to take the shot from there."

Gomez would like to see his team do more of what resulted in Rojas' goal – shoot the ball.

"We're still not taking shots and that is something that we need to have happen more often," Gomez said.

"We rely a lot on Meagan too much and every team we play knows that and they pack two or three players on her. We need to find different people to step up and take some of the pressure off of Meagan."

In each of the two overtime sessions, Radloff saw scoring chances go wide or sail over the goal.

"Personally I was really frustrated because all of my shots keep going over the goal," Radloff said.

"I kept trying to keep my shots down, but they still sailed on me. I thought we played well, at times, and we did do a nice job of possessing the ball. At least we did come back and get the tie."

The Wildcats lost defender Rachel Thomas to an injury in the second overtime as injuries continue to pile up for Gomez' squad.

"We have a few key injuries and we're trying to survive without them and I thought we've done well thus far," Gomez said. "Overall, I was happy with the effort that we gave.

"Win or lose as long as we give the type of effort we did tonight we'll be fine. We had more chances to score, but that is soccer. It is not about having chances to score, it is about finishing and we didn't do that today."