West Chicago shares the load

West Chicago made sure to spread the fun around Tuesday night in Wheaton.

The Wildcats got goals from four players in a 4-1 DuPage Valley Conference victory at Wheaton Warrenville South.

“It’s kind of been the story of our season,” Wildcats coach Steve Brugmann said. “We’ve got a couple of guys up in double digits, but we’ve got probably a dozen guys on the books, so they’re coming from all over the place. ... That’s made us difficult to stop at times.”

The Tigers had West Chicago stopped until the 38th minute, when Esteban Fernandez converted a Diego Munoz pass into a goal.

“That was kind of deflating,” Tigers coach Guy Callipari said of the goal right before halftime.

West Chicago (9-5-2, 2-1) took a two-goal lead in the 64th minute, with Munoz again getting the assist, this time to Carlos Martinez. It was a typical outing for the West Chicago playmaker.

“Diego’s pretty incredible,” Brugmann said. “Everything goes through him. He’s a very unselfish player, almost to the point where you have to tell him to take a shot now, because he puts himself in that position. ... He’s got such vision and the ball just sticks to his feet.”

“You don’t see too much of that in this game at that level too often,” Callipari added. “They have two or three players that really have a great imagination.”

The Tigers (5-4-3, 0-2) clawed back with an Erik Yamane goal in the 73rd minute, then started looking for an equalizer.

“Right after they scored they seemed to come after us, but right away we controlled the midfield,” Munoz said.

“It’s Wheaton South, you don’t stop against a DVC school,” Brugmann added. “At halftime my speech was you know that they want this just as badly as we do. It’s a big prize.”

West Chicago found some breathing room with a 76th-minute penalty kick by Richard Paret, then added a goal in the final minute by Jesus Duran.

“We got back in the game, but then we’re throwing caution to the wind by throwing numbers up,” Callipari said.

The Wildcats impressed with their technical ability, starting with Munoz in the middle.

“Our plan is to have control of the ball,” he said. “We possessed the ball most of the game, and that’s what got us through.”

“It was a great demonstration of technical soccer, certainly on their part,” Callipari added. “They have a great understanding of cohesiveness and rhythm and running off the ball. We were making some critical mistakes early on by watching the ball and not tracking runs, allowing simple give-and-gos.”