Mustangs runner-up to Neuqua in DGS tourney title game

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By Matt Le Cren

The toughest thing about playing Neuqua Valley this season is that the Wildcats don’t have any major weaknesses.

In fact, weaknesses of any kind are not readily apparent.

Downers Grove South found that out Saturday night. Despite a tremendous defensive effort from defenders Jess Pikul, Kimmy Grimmer, Cara Doogan and Lori Niehaus, the Mustangs fell from the ranks of the unbeaten courtesy of Neuqua (5-0), which won 2-1 in the championship game of the Downers South Invite at Hinsdale Central.

“We’re a pretty solid team at every position,” Neuqua defender Megan Oyster said.

It starts with Oyster. Not only did the UCLA recruit play her usual dominant game on the back line, she was downright terrifying on free kicks. Long known for her prowess on dead balls, Oyster outdid herself at the 31:33 mark of the first half when she blasted a 30-yard free kick past the Downers South wall and goalie Amanda Meyers for a 1-0 lead.

“I felt it,” said Oyster, who has lifted weights to add muscle since last season. “I just saw the opening and I hit it as hard as I could. That was a huge wall and if I was going to hit the wall I was going to take one of them out, too.”

The blast did not take out the Mustangs (5-1-1), who became the first squad to score on the Wildcats when Jessica Bronke retaliated 33 seconds later. The junior midfielder got the ball in front of Oyster on the left wing and quickly fired a left-footed shot from 35 yards out that caromed off the inside of the right post and in to tie the game.

“Right in front of me,” Oyster said. “I stepped and then she hit it right away.”

The Wildcats responded by controlling the ball for much of the rest of the fast-paced contest. Downers South was constantly chasing as the Wildcats strung passes together with consistency and generated chance after chance.

“I think that one of the qualities of our team is possession,” Oyster said. “We do a really good job keeping the ball on the ground and knowing when to keep it. When we scored I thought that was a good thing but then we got it right back in our face, so it was our job to keep the ball of the game.”

Whether it was Hope D’Addario, Alexa Wilde or Noelle Leary in the midfield or forwards Meghan Kelley, Zoey Goralski, Gianna Dal Pozzo, Allie McBride and Morgan Mulcahy, the Wildcats had no trouble creating havoc.

Downers South somehow kept Goralski, who had scored six goals in her previous two matches, off the scoresheet, but the Mustangs couldn’t prevent Dal Pozzo from scoring what turned out to be the game-winner 2:36 before halftime.

Mulcahy started the play with a pass from the right side of the box to Dal Pozzo at the six. Meyers, who made eight saves, somehow was able to tip the shot into the right post but Dal Pozzo buried the rebound from five yards out.

To the Mustangs’ credit, they battled hard and nearly tied the game in the 10th minute of the second half when Flo Beshiri’s lead pass from the midfield sprung Keri Kujawa on a breakaway up the middle.

Kujawa, an Illinois State signee, is usually deadly in those situations but Neuqua’s freshman goalie, Courtney Keefer, made the save of her young career when she charged out of the net and was able to deflect Kujawa’s shot barely wide of the right post.

“Huge save. She came up big and that’s what we needed,” Oyster said. “If one of us breaks down in the back it kind of leaves an opening there. So she stepped up and saved it and it was huge play for her.”

“I saw her and I just read it at the right time and I knew that nobody was probably going to get there, so I thought then that it’s just my time to come out,” Keefer said. I got there and I got a piece of it and it felt good.

“When I tipped it I kind of knew because I got my hand on it and I just pushed it as much as I could and I knew that it was going to go out.”

Keefer, who finished with two saves, didn’t have much of a chance at stopping Bronke’s goal but blamed herself anyway, so she saw the stop on Kujawa as redemption.

“The wind was taking it all over the place,” Keefer said. “I thought I could get it, then I thought I couldn’t and that’s one of the things as a goalie – you can’t hesitate, you just have to go after it.

“The games we’ve had there hasn’t really been a lot of shots on me. That was my first goal [allowed], so I knew after the goal I just needed to come back and really help out my team.”

Keefer hasn’t been tested often because Oyster, Sydney Tappin and Lauren Noonan have been outstanding. But because the Wildcats, unlike most teams, use only three defenders, Keefer and fellow rookie goalie Madison Thielsen have to be ready because of the increased risks of breakaways.

“I’ve got some amazing defenders in front of me so I’m really lucky, but we’re really good at not giving up the outside shot, which is definitely one of my [strengths],” Keefer said. “But if the breakaways come through I’m ready for it.”

Oyster was pleased with her team’s performance against the Mustangs, who could wind up being one of the Wildcats’ main competitors in the Waubonsie Valley Sectional.

“It’s a good start to our season, first off,” Oyster said. “It’s a lead [into] what we have coming because this [Downers South] is a great team. We’ve doing really well in the previous games but this is the first one where we had to actually step up and play and having [to face Downers South] in the beginning of the season was helpful because we’ve got some hard games coming, too.”