Late Glenbard East goal forces Wildcats to settle for a tie

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By Matt Le Cren

Glenbard East freshman Alex Ruffer scored the first goal of her career Friday night and it was a big one.

The midfielder’s tally with 19:17 remaining in the second half of East’s DuPage Valley Conference match with visiting West Chicago tied the score and the two sides eventually settled for a 1-1 draw after regulation and 20 minutes of sudden-death overtime failed to produce another goal.

“I was just trying to put the ball in the net and I hit a good ball,” Ruffer said. “It feels really good. They just beat Wheaton North so it was a good [result].”

Ruffer’s game-tying play began when Lindsey Paganucci and Erin Mrazek worked a short corner kick from the left side. Mrazek sent a pass to Ruffer just inside of the top of the penalty area and the rookie blasted a 17-yard shot into the upper left corner of the net.

“The girl was just wide-open within the box and it’s hard when all the girls are in the box for the corner kick,” West Chicago goalie Kelsey Myers said. “I couldn’t really get around the [traffic] very easily.

“For me it’s disappointing. For the rest of the team we all played pretty well. But for me it’s pretty disappointing to get a tie.”

While the result felt like a loss for the Wildcats (6-2-2, 1-0-1), who nonetheless extended their unbeaten streak to six matches, it felt like a win for the Rams (2-2-3, 0-1-1), who in past years would not have been able to come back against a superior squad like West Chicago.

“That’s been a huge focus for us,” Glenbard East coach Kent Overbey said. “In past years, we might have given up, but this is a great group of girls and we’ve been focusing on consistency. We knew if we kept doing what we were doing and we kept their big guns away from the goal that hopefully we could be successful, and we managed to put one in.”

The fact that Ruffer scored the equalizer was important to Overbey, whose young club has only four seniors.

“It was a huge one,” he said. “Alex got up and down the field. I’ve been very impressed with her as a freshman, to come in and be able to play in the middle of the field as well as outside and [deal with] the physical play in the DVC.”

The Rams also had to deal with disappointment after a controversial call ended the first half. This time the emotions were the opposite of those felt at the end of the match, as the Wildcats breathed a sigh of relief.

After West Chicago dominated play throughout the first half, the Rams were awarded a free kick with 10 seconds remaining. Jessie Grumstrup got the 35-yarder away with about four ticks remaining and the ball skipped past Myers and into the net as time expired.

Since the horn didn’t sound, the Rams thought they had taken a 1-0 lead, but after a conference, the referees waved off the goal, saying the ball did not cross the line before the clock ran out. No one was able to say for sure whether it was the right call.

“I’m not really sure,” Myers said. “I didn’t pay attention to the time. I just tried to get the ball and it’s really muddy over there, so I actually slipped on it so I couldn’t grab it.”

“It was pretty close, but it could go either way,” Ruffer said. “It was really the ref’s decision. We just decided to forget about what happened and try to rebound.”

Overbey didn’t agree with the call but his protests did no good.

“We thought it went in,” Overbey said. “Obviously, you can’t argue with the refs. They saw something different. It was unfortunate, but we thought we regrouped well in the second half and came out and continued to shut them down.”

The Rams did manage to do a good job of containing the Wildcats, who had beaten South Elgin 4-1 and Larkin 7-1 in their last two outings. East sweeper Nicole Darga stuck to West Chicago star Meagan Radloff like glue while Meghan Mumenthal spent much of the evening chasing down speedy sophomore Andie Lazzerini.

The Eastern Illinois-bound Radloff has been torching defenses all spring but was held scoreless as East goalie Veronica Fairbairn made five of her nine saves on Radloff, including a diving stop on a 16-yard shot in the first overtime.

“Obviously, Meagan Radloff is probably one of the best individual talents we’ll see all season and we knew that if we could stop her and [Bianca] Navejas in the middle that we could be successful,” Overbey said. “[Lazzerini] played very well as well.

“We moved Lindsey Paganucci back to mark Radloff because Lindsey is a lockdown defensive player. Unfortunately she’s also one of our best attacking players, so we did suffer because of that, but we did a great job.”

But Radloff wasn’t completely contained as she assisted on the Wildcats’ lone goal, which came at the 27:19 mark of the second half. Navejas started the play by making a long run up the middle before passing to Radloff on the left flank.

Radloff dribbled into the box, fended off one challenge and went in close before sending a cross to the far post, where Cassie Thill volleyed it home for her first goal of the season.

“We do a lot of practice on that but you never know when someone’s going to be there,” West Chicago coach Cesar Gomez said. “Sometimes easy goals are scored like that. That looks very easy but if you’re not there, it’s nothing.”

The goal proved the Wildcats, who are used to playing on artificial turf, were able to put the disappointment of the scoreless first half in their rear view mirror and battle hard on the muddy field in Lombard.

“We just talked about continuing to play our game because playing on grass isn’t easy for us,” Myers said. “Our game is possession, so it’s really hard especially when it’s wet and muddy and you can’t control it well.”

The Wildcats controlled it well enough to put constant pressure on the Rams, who didn’t break under the strain. East’s defense has given up only six goals in seven matches and more than one just once, a marked improvement from 2010.

“That was a huge focus. Last year we had 39 goals against and we knew you can’t win many games when you’re giving up those kinds of goals,” Overbey said. “We had a tough one against WWS [a 1-0 loss on Tuesday] and we wanted to make sure we came out with the same energy today and when they scored, we kind of dug deep.

“They do a great job at West Chicago of possessing the ball in the middle of the field and our players managed to match them player for player.”

Darga, a senior, was all over the field against the Wildcats, making sure the visitors had no easy chances.

“We’ve yet to run up against somebody who’s faster than her,” Overbey said. “She’s great and she just kind of cleans it all up and she can actually get forward too. She’s a great individual talent and she works very well with our outside [fullbacks]. Meghan Mumenthal kind of overlooked but she locked down [Lazzerini], who is a great player.”

East’s improvement hasn’t gone unnoticed by opposing coaches.

“Their squad is good,” Gomez said. “They know who our strong people are and they mark with two. They've made a lot of progress. Those coaches are doing a good job.”