Batavia changes its fate against Neuqua Valley
It's not how your start, but how you finish, and Batavia finds itself still standing.
The Bulldogs suffered their worst loss of the year in their season opener at Neuqua Valley back when the leaves hadn't even started to change colors yet.
On Saturday, though, at the Class 3A Waubonsie Valley regional championship, the Bulldogs played those same Wildcats. This time they were victorious, winning 3-1 to advance to Tuesday's Class 3A Metea Valley sectional semifinals, where they'll face Naperville Central at 6:30 p.m.
It was the third regional title Batavia has won at Waubonsie Valley in the past five years. Apparently, it's become the Bulldogs' postseason home away from home.
"We've had some pretty good success here," Bulldogs coach Mark Gianfrancesco said. "The boys are resilient. You can't just look at the record. If you watch the games, you see we do some nice things and the boys just hung in there this year, especially this game. After it went to 1-1, we could've caved and been done, especially since they pressed us a bit, but we kept going."
Batavia (8-9-6) struck first when sophomore Sal Garcia sent in a bounding ball with 20:05 remaining in the first half.
Neuqua Valley (10-9-1), which also saw its season come to a close against Batavia a year ago, netted the equalizer with 2:39 remaining in the opening half. Laith Alhindi set up Joshua Kolzow, but his shot bounced off a defender and was redirected. That route change proved to be beneficial to the Wildcats. Goalkeeper Jimmy Perrault had started to move to his right while the ball went the other way.
The Wildcats possessed the ball more for the remainder of the game, but they couldn't find the back of the net.
"We built the momentum, but we definitely didn't get the second one," Neuqua Valley coach Arnoldo Gonzalez said. "We were kind of waiting for it to happen. It seemed like (Batavia) wasn't crossing our half. We did have total possession of the ball, but again, if it doesn't cross that line, it's not a goal. A team doesn't win that has the most possession. The ball has to go into the net."
That's where it went after Batavia senior Davis DiBiase booted it from about 45 yards away with 7:19 left in the game.
"Trevor (Hockings) is pretty good on set pieces and whipping them in, and with defender holding me tight I gave a good juke, got behind him and Trevor put it perfectly on my foot," DiBiase said. "We definitely wanted that go-ahead goal before the end of the game. No one wants to go to overtime."
Luke Laurich fell to the ground, quickly got back up to send in an insurance goal with just 4.8 seconds remaining. That undoubtedly sealed the victory.
The Bulldogs opted to celebrate their victory by hoisting another regional plaque and taking plenty of photos.
"Every team is even in the playoffs and anything can happen," DiBiase said. "Getting that win right now shows we can beat good teams. They were the higher seed and beat us earlier in the season, but we showed we can come back."