Neuqua Valley, Ross too much for Mustangs in UEC contest

Phots courtesy of Barb English

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By Paul Johnson

Two weeks ago, Neuqua Valley freshman Ryan Ross was just another player on the Wildcats’ JV soccer team.

But after a practice, coach Tony Kees pulled him up to the varsity squad. He scored one goal between his first two varsity contests.

And then the second half of Tuesday’s 3-1 Upstate Eight Valley win over Metea Valley got started.

Down 1-0 after a nifty goal from Metea senior Ryan Solomon in the ninth minute, Ross announced his arrival to varsity soccer with authority.

He scored all three Neuqua goals to hand the Mustangs their first loss of the season. “It’s kind of indescribable,” Ross said. “To get a hat trick in my third game, and in one half, it was amazing.”

Brian Benjamin played the ball in for Ross’ first goal of the game, which came at the 26:47 mark of the second half, tying the game at 1-1. A mere 2:27 later, Ross was at it again, lofting a shot in to give Neuqua (4-2-1 overall, 2-0 UEC Valley) a 2-1 lead.

Ross put the finishing touches on the game and his breakout performance with another goal with 2:21 left.

“He brings a lot of energy, doesn’t he?,” Kees said. “He buzzes around and he’s pesky and after a while, defenders start hearing footsteps and if they make a mistake, he finds a way to sneak in behind guys. He’s got a reasonable touch for a finish. Nice goals tonight, but they were all earned because he works hard. He’s garnered a lot of respect from our players.”

Metea (4-1-2, 0-1) got off to a quick start on Solomon’s early goal, which came off a Nate Donovan feed.

“I put a little chip on it and got it past the goalie,” Solomon said. “To be honest, I think the whole team thought after we got that first goal that we were going to keep running through it. Toward the end of the first half, they started winning a lot more 50-50 balls. When that starts happening, a lot can change from there.”

That’s what impressed Kees so much about how his team responded after digging itself an early hole.

“I think that was the key, the fact that we didn’t change what we were doing,” Kees said. “We took a goal and we had to just keep playing. You got the feeling the second half of the first half. We weren’t that dangerous, but we had more of the ball, we were getting more confident. I felt like we just had to keep pushing, then it opened up a little bit.”

That opened the door for the opportunistic Ross to break out on the varsity level in a big way. It hasn’t taken long for the veterans on the Wildcats to take to Ross.

“It’s really good because at first they were a little iffy, like, ‘Who’s this freshman?,’” Ross said. “Now, they have some trust in me, hopefully more after this game.”

Metea now has to respond to its first loss of the season. In the Mustangs’ previous three games, they outscored Fenwick, Niles West and Deerfield 7-0 in Pepsi Showdown play.

“It was a good game,” Metea coach Josh Robinson said. “I think it was a growing experience for the boys. Hopefully they took something from it. I don’t know if it’s a rivalry yet, but a lot of these kids would have been Waubonsie kids (before the district split), so the game was big to them. They wanted to come out and play well. I think for a lot of parts, we did. There were some other things I didn’t think we did as well. I think we got exposed a little bit. There is a long way to go. Hopefully they bounce back and react to it.”