Neuqua Valley rolls past Naperville Central
Anyone wondering just how good Neuqua Valley is found out Saturday afternoon.
The top-ranked Wildcats routed a good Naperville Central club 6-2 in Naperville.
“It’s a great thing to accomplish here,” Neuqua Valley central defender Megan Oyster said. “It shows we’re a great team and we’re capable of anything. I hope we can keep it up.”
The Wildcats struck in the third minute. A long Hope D’Addario free kick into the Naperville Central goalmouth eventually fell to Oyster. Naperville Central goalkeeper Jill D’Amico stopped Oyster’s first shot, but Oyster buried the rebound.
“She usually hits them pretty deep, and I went to the far post and I read it,” said the UCLA-bound Oyster. “Originally the ball hit Alexa Wilde’s head. I got the second rebound and the third effort was the goal.”
“We came here knowing that Central is a good team, and to get a goal let our nerves relax a little bit and it boosted our game even more. It was a good start to the game.”
It got better for the Wildcats.
In the 12th minute Wilde won the ball from a defender and found herself behind the defense. She slipped her shot off the right post.
The score went to 3-0 in the 18th minute when speedy sophomore Zoey Goralski beat a defender down the left sideline and used the outside of her right shoe to score to the far post. Gianna Dal Pozzo blasted a 32-yard shot off D’Amico’s fingertips and just under the bar in the 23rd minute, and the Wildcats (11-0) took a 4-0 lead at halftime.
“They capitalized on every mistake that we made in the first half,” Redhawks coach Ed Watson said. “Kids don’t understand what mistakes are sometimes. Their first goal came from a needless foul from a forward at the half line. And then they serve a ball in — it was well struck — and we let it bounce in the box. And then not only do we let it bounce, we let one of their best players in the air gather the ball in.”
The Wildcats scored twice again in the first two minutes of the second half, on goals by Allie McBride and Dal Pozzo.
“We know we’re a good team and we know we’re capable of this much goal-scoring in this game, but I didn’t realize we would get this many goals,” Oyster said.
The Redhawks (7-4-1) pulled two goals back, the first when sophomore Sabrina Cisneros’ long ball took advantage of a turf hop to score in the 48th minute. In the 62nd minute Nicole Ramberg knocked in a Cisneros cross from the right side.
“The goals in the second half, we’ll take them,” Watson said. “We earned them.”
“No one wants to give up goals, especially when you’re up 6-0 and you don’t need to,” Oyster said. “They’re kind of fluke goals, sloppy and shouldn’t have happened. Hopefully, we can keep a shutout our next game.”
The final two goals will keep Neuqua Valley working hard.
“We can’t have those mental breakdowns like that,” Wildcats coach Joe Moreau said. “The last 35 minutes of the game I think that’s what kind of happened. That’s a darn good team we just threw 6 up against with one of the best goalies not only in the state but one of the best goalies in the country.”