Conant pulls off stunner over Neuqua Valley
Conant girls soccer coach Jason Franco had a little checklist in mind of things that needed to happen in order for his Cougars to knock off powerful Neuqua Valley.
The way he saw it, his team needed to play well on defense, get a big save or two from goalkeeper Lindsay Fillingim and score a goal on a restart in order to beat the Wildcats in first-round action of the Naperville Invitational at Naperville Central.
What Conant got was a yes, a yes and then two yeses, as defender Kelsey Foss scored twice on free kicks and the Cougars (7-2) handed Neuqua a 3-1 loss Thursday.
"This was just great. It's a big confidence booster," said Foss, who notched the lone goal of the first half before adding a huge goal in the second half after the Wildcats had gotten within 2-1. "This was just the game. It felt like going downstate again last year. This was just fun."
Fillingim made a pair of nifty saves on Wildcats freshman Gianna Dal Pozzo that kept the game scoreless in the first half before Foss scored from about 20 yards out with a low free kick that eluded Neuqua goalkeeper Alexa Wilde to the right side of the net.
Wildcats senior Courtney Ratz tried to counter almost immediately, but her shot went wide left with 15:05 left in the half and the score remained 1-0 until Conant's Kaitlin Chiero took a pass from Courtney Raetzman and scored with 34:33 left in the second half.
But the Wildcats (11-2-1), who had opened the season with an 11-game unbeaten string that was snapped by Waubonsie Valley on Monday, had plenty of fight left in them.
Noelle Leary raced to get a foot on a nice ball sent deep to the left side of the field and managed to send a shot past Fillingim to make it 2-1 with 23:31 left.
The score gave Neuqua plenty of momentum and the Wildcats threatened to draw even three minutes later when Fillingim was caught a little too far out of the net only to have her defense come to the rescue.
That set the stage for another Foss free kick, a perfectly placed shot to the upper right corner that skimmed past the outstretched arms of Wilde. That score sealed the Cougars big win.
"I love free kicks," Foss said. "That (third goal) made us feel like we could calm down a little, but not too much."
Leary, meanwhile, kept looking over her shoulder at the net while talking to reporters after the loss. She knew her Wildcats squad played a solid game on Thursday but just let too many chances slip way.
"We came out in the second half with a ton of energy," said Leary, who notched her second goal of the year for the Wildcats. "It just wasn't in our favor today. I just wish a couple of them (chances) would have gone in."
For Franco, it was a great bounce back game for his team after a tough conference loss to Elk Grove earlier in the week.
"We knew we had to play well defensively and we knew we had to have our goalie come up big and she did," he said. "We tend to play big against big teams and this is huge. We're excited about it."