Wildcats survive a wild finish to top Metea Valley
By Matt Le Cren

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Neuqua Valley and Metea Valley are two teams that have a lot in common.

Both are inexperienced sides that struggled in the early going this season against tough competition.

Both had overcome those slow starts to win five of their last six games heading into Thursday’s Upstate Eight Conference Valley Division showdown.

What a show they put on in Naperville. Host Neuqua Valley was dominant in taking a two-goal halftime lead but had to survive a bite-your-nails ending to hang on for a 2-1 victory.

The action kept the fans – and players on both benches - on the edge of their seats until the final seconds watching to see if Metea Valley could cap a furious comeback by sending the game into overtime.

For an instant, everybody thought the Mustangs had when Christopher Freeman pounced on a loose ball just outside the six-yard box with 20 seconds. But the junior forward’s left-footed shot whizzed over the crossbar with 20 seconds left.

“My goodness, my heart stopped towards that last one,” Neuqua Valley senior midfielder Eduardo Cruz said. “It’s unfortunate that he missed, but I’m glad he did. That was a scary moment, but our team stuck together to get that win.”

Metea Valley (5-5-2, 1-3) had pressured the Wildcats for most of the second half, slowly building an attack with patient passing and consistent possession in the midfield. But the Mustangs really didn’t come close to scoring the equalizer until Freeman’s final shot.

“I thought we were pretty organized until the last 20 seconds when it looked like all was for naught, but [Freeman’s shot] was a difficult chance,” Neuqua Valley coach Skip Begley said. “It wasn’t just a sitter; it was on his left foot coming across the goal. But they’ve got some nice players and they put the pressure on. I thought we handled it pretty well.”

The Wildcats (7-5, 4-0) didn’t have to handle any pressure in the first half and appeared ready to cruise to victory after grabbing a 2-0 lead at the break. But Begley wasn’t satisfied, saying “we need two” good halves, not one.

The first half was exceedingly good for Neuqua, with defender Jimmy Kotowski scoring on the game’s first shot when he headed home a free kick from Xavier Ortiz at the 29:45 mark.

Cruz made it 2-0 with 9:28 left in the period with his second goal of the year on another pretty play. Munashe Nyamunduru drove the right end line before sending a serve in front of the right post, where a hustling Cruz had a half-step on his man. His sliding volley redirected the ball past Metea goalie Gabriel Gongora-Falla and inside the right post.

“It was a great assist,” Cruz said. “Once I saw Munashe taking [his defender] on, I knew he was going to cross it, so I sprinted down the line hoping that he’ll get the ball in and he did. I just slid hoping that I’d get it on my foot and put a little flick on it. I did and it happened to go in.”

For Metea Valley coach Josh Robinson, both Wildcats goals were the result of simple desire.

“Getting in the box is a difficult thing to do so it’s just a little bit of wanting it more,” Robinson said. “In the box it’s a battle in there and it was just a little want and heart to get those two goals.

“For whatever reason we didn’t have it the first 25 minutes, then when we started knocking it around and we played better, the guys wanted it a little more. It’s a rival school, it’s a rivalry game. You have to be intense all 80 minutes.”

Cruz said his squad was intense and the reason was simple.

“Right now we’re undefeated in the conference and every game we come out here, every 50/50 ball we’ve got to win no matter what because it could be a goal for us,” Cruz said. “We do want it. We want it so bad. Every game counts and we have got to go out there and play our hardest. Today we played great.”

But that didn’t mean the victory was easy. Metea Valley made sure of that by playing an inspired second half.

The Mustangs cut the gap to 2-1 with 27:02 remaining on sophomore midfielder Dakota Rowsey’s second goal of the season, which was a result of just the build-up Robinson was seeking.

Andrew Shin and Franco Cattani started the play by working a give-and-go on the left side of midfield and eventually the ball made its way to the dangerous Freeman, who used some fancy footwork to dribble through two defenders to the left end line, where he crossed through the crease to Rowsey for the open finish on the back post.

“It was a great goal,” Robinson said. “It was things we’ve been trying to do all year.

“The simpler we play, the better we are. When we play one- and two-touch I think we play better and I think Dakota played absolutely fantastic today and I think our success in the second half was a result of his composure and Nate Donovan’s composure.”

But the Wildcats showed composure as well, with Kotowski blocking back-to-back shots from Jack Staton and Jake Goehring midway through the second half and forward Jake Loncar also coming back to block a shot a few minutes later.

“After they got the goal we got a little bit more of the play and kind of stopped the momentum from coming right at us, but for 10-12 minutes they were coming with high pressure and we couldn’t release the ball out and get the pressure away,” Begley noted. “They made a commitment to go to goal.

“They put their three players up top and they were sitting two inside and you can’t cover the whole field. They played the ball in and luckily they only got the one.”

The Wildcats could get nothing going offensively in the final 40 minutes, managing only one corner kick and two shots, the last of which was a header by Loncar that was easily saved by Gongora-Falla.

“We could not get the counter goal that we need in that situation,” Begley said. “When they’re pressed up, when you get a couple balls that bounce out, you’ve got to maybe do a little bit better job of getting to goal and we didn’t do that to get to 3-1, so that kept the pressure on.”

The win allowed Neuqua to move into a first-place tie with Lake Park in the UEC Valley. East Aurora is a half-game back at 3-0. While both coaches would like to see more consistency from their respective teams, the Wildcats were the team better able to weather the storms.

“During our ups and downs you have people messing up but we encourage people to talk to them to get up,” Cruz explained. “There were some mistakes in the back today, but it doesn’t matter because we’re a team in the end and I feel like that helped us keep going.”

“You have to give the kids credit,” Begley said. “I thought we played very well in the first half and showed some patience with the ball and moved the ball. We’re capable of playing that way.

“Finding 80 consistent minutes is [key]. You’ve got to dodge those mistakes and get a break here or there in those times when you’re not playing well.”

That’s something the Mustangs are still working on.

“We’ve gotten the results but maybe not the consistency,” Robinson said. “It happened again today. I thought we struggled really bad in the first half to get into it, [then] played maybe the best half of soccer in that second half. We just possessed the ball, played very well, just couldn’t finish.

“The biggest thing is we’ve got to be consistent. We have the hardest time playing 80 minutes of soccer sometimes, but I’m very proud of how they played.”