Warriors fall to Neuqua Valley 3-1
By Matt Le Cren

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With only two returning starters and a new coach, Neuqua Valley has taken its lumps in the early going as a large group of inexperienced players adjusts to the pace of varsity soccer and the style being taught by new boss Skip Begley.

While not as experienced as in recent years, the Wildcats still have high hopes and a good amount of potential, which they demonstrated Thursday by upsetting rival Waubonsie Valley 3-1 in Aurora.

The stunning road win gave Neuqua Valley an early leg up the Upstate Eight Conference Valley Division race and its first two-game winning streak of the season.

“It’s a transition period for me and a transition period for them,” Begley said. “It’s difficult to find your team chemistry but they worked really hard. I’m real proud of the result they got tonight.

“We talked about losing four games and losing them in [a less than] great fashion; 2-0, 3-0, 4-1. But there were things that we were doing better and I thought it showed tonight that they understand a little better and they kind of get how we’re trying to play.”

Senior defender Jimmy Kotowski, one of the returning starters, scored his second goal of the season for the Wildcats (3-4, 2-0). The goals have come in consecutive games and both have been game-winners. Kotowski also scored in a 1-0 win over York last Saturday in a Best of the West Tournament game.

“Kotowski is one of those kids that just gets up and scrambles and works hard and is a grinder,” Begley said. “He’s the kind of kid that a coach loves to see get a goal because he just gets up there and works his tail off.”

Begley got to see Kotowski score just 41 seconds into the second half. The game was tied 1-1 when the Wildcats took the second-half kickoff and stormed into Waubonsie’s end, earning a corner kick.

Alex Liu sent the corner kick to Kotowski, who was open in front. Waubonsie goalie Jordan Ward made a diving save on Kotowski’s eight-yard shot, but Kotowski tracked down the rebound and scored from a sharp angle outside the right post to give the Wildcats the lead for good.

“I had a shot, keeper made a nice save and no one followed it, so I just went through, got the shot, was lucky enough to get the goal,” Kotowski said.

Luck had nothing to do with how the Wildcats started the second half. Kotowski had made sure of that with his comments during the intermission.

“The key was we talked about in the huddle [at halftime how] they got us in the first five minutes,” Kotowski said. “We’ve been working hard at practice and I was like, ‘boys, it’s in our hands now. We have to do this. It’s a conference game. We know what’s on our plate.’

“We have to get the job done. And I think that raised the boys spirits a little bit and we came out with a goal and we were able to hold them off for the rest of the 38 minutes of soccer. The boys played great.”

That’s not to say Waubonsie Valley (4-2-1, 1-1) did not put up a fight. On the contrary, the host Warriors dominated in the early going and could have held a 3-0 lead.

Casey Bucz, who barely missed scoring in the sixth minute, gave the Warriors a 1-0 at the 27:58 mark of the first half when he finished a beautiful team effort by beating Neuqua goalie Zack Goldstein with a sharp header under the crossbar.

Frankie Saiz triggered the play with a cross from the left wing to Vish Patel, who headed it back across the middle to Bucz. The play took only a few seconds and the ball never touched the ground.

“If you look underneath the bench you can see a couple [of my] claw marks [from] when they were in and they shot one wide and they shot one over the top,” Begley said. “They could have went up 2-0, 3-0 on us and luckily they didn’t.

“But the converse can be seen in the second half. Jake [Loncar] had two balls that had a chance and Ryan Ross maybe had another one, so we’re encouraged by the number of chances we’re getting because early on we were struggling to score goals.”

The momentum changed when a Waubonsie defender was yellow carded for tripping Loncar outside the top left corner of the box. Eduardo Cruz took the resulting 25-yard free kick and sent it into the box to Loncar, who bounced a header past Ward to tie the game with 22:45 to go in the opening period.

It was the first goal of the season for Loncar, a junior forward with a bright future.

“Eduardo hit a great ball in,” Loncar said. “I was lucky enough to be there. The ball came in and I was lucky enough to be there and flick it in and I could feel the momentum changing our way. It felt like we took the game there for a while.”

Goldstein, who finished with five saves, kept things even by making a diving stop on Saiz’s shot off a Timmy Miller free kick with 12:00 left in the first half, and then the first 20 minutes of the second half belonged to the Wildcats.

Neuqua looked to be in control, but Loncar missed wide on a breakaway with 29:10 to go, had a header saved by Ward at 23:53 and sent a one-timer over the bar at 22:01.

Then things really got interesting as both sides broke down the opposing defenses with ease. The two sides combined to launch 33 shots, 22 of which came in the second half.

Desperate to score the equalizer, the Warriors came oh-so-close on three occasions. Patel crashed the back post to get to a cross from Miller but sent the shot wide left with 5:05 to play. Two minutes later Goldstein came out to punch out a shot by Saiz before Jack Cicchini sent a long rebound over the bar.

Then with 1:37 remaining Miller got deep into the box on the left side and passed to Jack Cordes in front. Cordes’ one-timer from six yards out hit the left post before being cleared.

Ross, Neuqua’s other returning starter, then put the game away by scoring on a counterattack at the 1:04 mark. He now is tied for the team scoring lead with Kotowski.

“This is a huge, huge, huge win for us,” Kotowski said. “The boys definitely feel it. I felt it. Our goal is to win the conference title and we’re 2-0 now.”

That the breakout victory came against their rivals made it that much sweeter for the Wildcats.

“I got a lot of kids on my club team on [Waubonsie] so it’s always good seeing them, but we’ve been working hard lately and we just wanted it so bad,” Loncar said. “We wanted to come out here and just work hard, not only for our school and our parents and everybody that supports us, but for one another. To get the job done just feels amazing.

“It’s always a great rivalry when we play them. You never know what’s going to happen, not always the best team wins.”

Waubonsie Valley assistant coach Jose Garcia knows all about that.

“It started out great,” Garcia said. “We let down. They took advantage of it.”

Begley was happy to see that.

“I’m only encouraged by their work,” Begley said. “They got the job done tonight. They really wanted the game and it showed in their work. I think we’ve realized that you have to work to get a result, that no team in the boys game is just so good that you walk out on the field and not put forth that effort.”

Indeed, the Wildcats seem to realize that the more you sweat in practice, the better the result will be in a match.

“At practice we’ve been putting in a lot of work, a lot of sweat,” Kotowski said. “We have a lot of new players. They played great tonight. They deserved to win.”

“We’re on a little bit of a roll right now, especially with our emotion and our chemistry is pulling us through,” Loncar said. “It feels good to get [the win] tonight.”