Ball bounces Wheaton North's way

Wheaton North finally got a bounce to go its way, and the timing was nearly perfect for the Falcons.

Jacques Ntahoturi's shot at the WW South goal with just more than two minutes remaining in Wednesday's DuPage Valley Conference game was blocked by a defender, but the rebound bounced right back to Ntahoturi, who calmly buried his second chance. That gave the visiting Falcons a 2-1 victory against their cross-town rivals.

"We've been in every match," coach Bryce Cann said of his Falcons (2-7-2, 1-1-1). "We've been competing like crazy. But like everything else, when you're in a 1-goal game, you need a ball to bounce your way here and a ball to bounce your way there."

"We've been looking for a win for a long time, so today we finally could get it," Ntahoturi said. "We were able to work hard as a team, so we finally found ourselves getting a win."

Ntahoturi's goal wouldn't have meant much to the Falcons if not for the sterling goalkeeping of Nick Barry.

"Barry came up huge," his coach said. "Barry saved probably at least 3-4 goals for us tonight. His last three games he's been phenomenal for us, and that's the Nick Barry we've been waiting to see. When he plays like that he gives us a chance to win games. We need that from him."

"Their goalie stoned us a couple of times," added Tigers coach Guy Callipari.

The lost left the Tigers (5-6-1) in a rare position.

"We're 0-2 in the DVC," Callipari said. "It's a place where we haven't been in a long time. Below .500 isn't a place where we've been in a long time. And it puts in the hole in the Wheaton Cup. So altogether it's a tough 80 minutes."