Boys soccer: Metea Valley overcomes injury to win STC invitational
Metea Valley not only lost its St. Charles Invitational Tournament opener on Monday, but also one of its top players in senior midfielder Joey Donovan.
On Saturday, the Mustangs won the tournament for Donovan.
Senior Davis Quarles scored with 7:23 remaining in the second overtime to lift Metea Valley to a 2-1 victory over St. Charles North.
"It really stinks that he got injured and is out for the season, especially since it's his senior year," Quarles said. "I think we were playing for him. We used that to motivate us and I feel like against St. Charles East (1-0 win on Wednesday) we kind of got our stride in the second half and have been playing really well after that. The rest of tournament has been very good for us."
While he couldn't play, Donovan was still on the sideline, rooting on his teammates with the aid of crutches as junior Alex Krehl assisted on the game-winner.
"I just saw the ball bouncing and saw Davis (Quarles) running across and I just knew he would put it away if I got it to him," Krehl said. "So I just flicked it up and got it to him and got the big goal."
The Mustangs (3-1-2) have been finding a way to find the back of the net at least once in games, but going from a single goal to multiple goals hasn't come as easily.
"We got a second goal and we've been asking for that," Mustangs coach Josh Robinson said. "We've done a really good job to get that (first) one and to really keep really teams to zero or one goal, so it's been about whether we could get that second one."
The North Stars (5-1) got whistled for a foul with nine seconds remaining in the first half of a scoreless game, and the Mustangs punished them with the late opportunity with senior Abraham Antar taking the free kick that junior Nick Sanchez was able to settle amid a crowd and simply roll in with 1.5 seconds left.
"One of the things this season is we're giving up a lot of fouls and stuff and it's cost us a lot of goals," North Stars goalkeeper Bobby Curran said. "But other than that we've been pretty solid defensively, but we just need to limit our fouls."
Senior Thomas Weber seized control of a bounding ball and redirected it for the North Stars to draw even at 1-1 with 23:05 left in the game.
"Colin Nelson went up for it and won the header and it just fell right to me," Weber said. "It was kind of not a great goal but it came at the right time and we kept our energy high into the overtimes and then we conceded a goal."
Willson praised Metea Valley as it's not often for a tournament champion to open with a tough loss and come back and win a tournament, especially with a star player knocked out of the action.
"While we're not happy with the end result, you tip your cap to Metea who put together a really nice tournament against some quality teams," he said. "I really liked what I saw from Metea."
As well as from his own North Stars who now have to rebound from a loss for the first time this fall.
"I think early in the season there are a lot of learning moments that happen for a team," Willson said. "I was really pleased with how we came out in the second half. I thought we were a different team from what you saw to begin the game."