Gongora-Falla gets game-winner vs. Benet
By Eddie Burns

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Gabriel Gongora-Falla made his senior night one to remember.

Gongora-Falla is Metea Valley’s starting goalie has been since midway through his sophomore season.

Gongora-Falla, who is a senior, played the first half in goal for the Mustangs during their non-conference match against Benet on Thursday night in Aurora.

Since the Mustangs were celebrating senior night, Metea coach Josh Robinson allowed fellow senior goalie Ian Jindrich to play in goal during the second half. Instead of heading to the bench, Gongora-Falla played in the field.

The move paid off as Gongora-Falla redirected Chris Freeman’s restart past Benet goalie Kyle Dal Santo the 68th minute to lift the Mustangs to a bit of a stunning 2-1 victory against Benet.

“Chris sent a beautiful ball in and my job is to get a touch on it,” Gongora-Falla said. “I skimmed it a little – it was just a little touch, but I got lucky with it and it went in past an amazing goalie in (Dal Santo).”

The winning goal was set up when the Redwings fouled Freeman inside Benet's end of the field.

Gongora-Falla’s goal made Metea the first team to score more than one goal against Benet. Gongora-Falla is no stranger to playing the field as he does for his club team and Robinson hasn’t been afraid to use him there in a few other prior matches this season for the Mustangs (7-5-2).

“This was maybe my fifth time playing in the field, but nothing serious like this,” Gongora-Falla said. “I just tried to work my butt off for this group. If I had to get my head on anything – I would have done it and thankfully I did and it went in.” 

Robinson liked the fact that nobody really knew how dangerous Gongora-Falla could be in the field.

“We’ve been able to keep it quiet that he has been on the field for us,” Robinson said. “He had a great assist for us in the Pepsi Showdown. He got a fantastic goal today – he is our team leader and he is our captain. He is a special kid. It was exciting to see him get that goal.”

Gongora-Falla’s goal overshadowed the job Jindrich did coming in off the bench. The Redwings (12-2-1) spent most of the second half pelting shots toward the Mustangs’ goal, but Jindrich was up to the task as he registered eight saves.

“I knew this would be a big chance and opportunity,” said Jindrich about his playing time. “When I came out on the field I was prepared to make a difference. I wasn’t about to let my team down. Playing against a team like (Benet), I had to definitely mentally prepare myself. I had to make sure that everything was pin-point and perfect.”

Jindrich received plenty of help from his teammates. The Redwings dominated the first 20 minutes of the second half as they pelted the Metea goal with shots and scoring chances. In the 50th minute, the Redwings had managed to get the ball past Jindrich, but defender Jack Staton was able to clear the ball off the line to preserve the 1-1 tie.

“I just knew I had to get it off the line by any means possible,” Staton said. “I had guys coming at me and I just had to pop (the ball) off the line as quickly as I could.”

Robinson said his defense kept the Mustangs in the match enough for them to create a chance to win.

“Benet is fantastic,” Robinson said. “For the first 20 minutes of the second half, they played significantly better soccer than we did and Ian and the defenders kept us in it. We started to turn the tide a little bit and we took advantage of it off the restart.”

Benet, which suffered its only other lost to unbeaten Naperville Central, initially took the lead midway through the first half when James Colletti converted off teammate Robert Tomecek’s corner kick. The Redwings had an 11-4 advantage in corner kick attempts.

The Mustangs pulled even a few minutes later when Freeman and Jake Goehring teamed up for a goal in transition. The match remained tied at intermission.

“Trust between Jake and Chris,” Robinson said. “They love playing together and it was a great combination play. It was composure. When we have given up goals this season we’ve fallen behind, but it was huge for us to come right back and answer. They haven’t given up a lot of goals this season.”

The Mustangs hope this match propels them moving forward.

“We are hitting our peak now,” Metea midfielder Franco Cattani said “We’ve been up and down, but we think we can really use this win to help us finish off the season strong.”

For Benet, this match will be used as a learning tool.

“We played good soccer, but we just had a couple of breakdowns,” Tomecek said. “They scored two goals in the 5 minutes we didn’t play – those mistakes cost us. We had the advantage for the remaining 75 minutes, but when we had two defensive  breakdowns and we hit 30 shots and don’t put enough of those on frame, it came back to bite us.”

Wesley said that this will serve as a reminder and possible wake-up call for the Redwings.

“We had chance after chance after chance and we gave up one restart and they scored,” Wesley said. “That is high school soccer. (Metea) is a good team. Maybe that is a reminder of last year of these games where we felt like we should have won and just didn’t get it done and they got it done. This is good for the team. This will light a fire.”

Both teams found out their sectional seeds on Thursday. The Mustangs received the eighth seed at West Chicago, where Naperville Central is the top seed in that sectional.

The real surprise was Benet being the third seed in the Argo Sectional behind top seed Morton and second seed Lyons Township.

“I was caught off guard,” Wesley said. “All we do is play against Naperville teams and we are set up to be the second seed in that sectional and then the IHSA moves us to a sectional where we don’t play any of those teams. We went into the sectional meeting at 11-1-1 and our only loss is Naperville Central and we were seeded third. It is interesting. This is what we want. We want to be challenged at the highest level. Morton and Lyons … I feel like we went from the group of death and got moved into the group of death.”