Vikings possess well in 1-1 tie with Metea Valley

By Chris Walker

So far, so good and still undefeated for the senior-less Metea Valley Mustangs.

Metea Valley, which captured its first varsity victory on Saturday in a 4-0 decision against Joliet West, rallied to force a 1-1 draw with Geneva on Tuesday night on a windy, rainy and overall frigid evening in Aurora.

"The kids showed a lot of class by hanging in there and bouncing back," Metea Valley coach Pat Feulner said. "They could've gotten down, but fought back, and for a young group they gave us a chance to win."

After playing nearly 70 minutes of scoreless soccer, the Mustangs suddenly found themselves trailing 1-0 with 13:48 remaining when Geneva’s Catherine Allon scored an unassisted goal.

"I just took a few dribbles and nailed it in. My aim was a little more to the left but the wind kept it away from the keeper," Allon said. "We had many other opportunities, but didn't take advantage, so in the second half we switched the lineup to try to get more people up top to try to get one in."

The combination of being young, cold and seeing your chance to win reduced after Allon’s goal could’ve sank a lot of teams, but the Mustangs answered a little more than three minutes later with the equalizer.

Jenna Kentgen scored the game-tying goal from just inside the 20-yard line. She was able to blast a shot past Geneva goalkeeper Victoria Fortney with 10:35 remaining after receiving a perfectly executed feed from Kristina Tomaras.

"I just saw their defense was shifted over and she was making a perfect window," Tomaras said. "I saw that brief moment of opportunity and played it. The wind helped a little, but she played it and had a very good shot."

Kentgen’s goal ended an 0-7 drought on shot attempts by the Mustangs, whose ability to create scoring chances was bleak in comparison to Geneva dominating the possession game and finishing with 25 shots.

"It's just the second game," Geneva coach Megan Owens said. "We played well. We dominated most of the game and created a lot of opportunities, but we struggled in finishing.”

Owens believes the scoring will come as long as the Vikings can continue to control possession like they did on Tuesday.

“Possession is a big part of the game and we did a good job of that,” she said. “We just didn’t finish and when we create chances we need to finish and we didn’t make the most of it tonight.”

The Vikings (1-0-1) received nice efforts particularly from their center midfielders to control the tempo of the match.

“They’re doing a great job for us,” Owens said. “Kristin Rodriguez, Kailey Rote, Catherine Allon, Amanda Lulek who looked real good on top. Caitrin Griffin and Demi Miller on defense, with Annie Waldoch and Molly Stanfa, they all looked very solid.”

Metea Valley (1-0-1) knew it would have a challenge in matching up with the speed of the Vikings, but the Mustangs held their own, due in large part to the efforts of center backs Alexis McCay and Samantha Butler.

“They did a nice job in the middle of controlling their speed and holding things together,” Feulner said. “We held pretty well against a pretty formidable group of players. I coach (Amanda) Luluk in club and she’s one of the fastest kids I know and I knew we’d have to contain her and I think the kids did a nice job.”

Feulner was less pleased with how his team struggled to control the tempo.

“I wasn’t happy possession-wise,” he said. “We gave away too many balls tonight but we’re still getting used to the speed of the game. We have to be able to connect five and 10-yard passes and we had a bit of trouble with that.

“But I told them, ‘Welcome to the varsity level. This is what this is all about.’”

Fortney finished with three saves for the Vikings. Done by committee, Megan Geldernick was the last line of defense in the first half for the Mustangs, stopping five attempts, while Kiley Dunning relieved her in goal for the final 40 minutes, making three saves.

GENEVA 2011 TEAM OUTLOOK:

2010 overall/conference record: 16-6-3 overall, 6-0-1 in Western Sun Conference (1st)

Top returning players:
Catherine Allon, junior, midfielder
Amanda Lulek, sophomore, forward
Demi Miller, senior, defender
Kailey Rote, junior, midfielder
Kristin Rodriguez, junior, midfielder
Caitrin Griffin, junior, defender
Victoria Fortney, senior, keeper
Ryan Konicek, senior, defender

Outlook: Coach Megan Owens: "We have a lot of new talent that's been added to our squad this year so our first challenge will be to mesh as a team. With all of our new additions this looks to be a rebuilding year for us. We hope to gain experience throughout the season in order to make a strong post season run again this year."