Boys soccer: Freshmen combine to score game-winner for Neuqua Valley
Leave it to a couple freshmen to ruin Senior Night.
As time legitimately ran out, Neuqua Valley stunned Waubonsie Valley when freshmen Jack Georgi and John Pochyly quickly pooled their resources to score the game-winning goal as time expired.
It resulted in a 3-2 victory for the Wildcats, which also was their first DuPage Valley Conference win of the season. The host Warriors did not win a game in the DVC this fall.
"Regardless of what the records are, whenever we play Waubonsie we know it's going to end up being something like this," Wildcats coach Arnoldo Gonzalez said. "Another typical DVC, Naperville game. It was close to going into overtime, and I think we've gone into overtime before so we expected this."
Georgi and Pohcyly really couldn't know what to expect. The two hadn't experienced playing in a huge rivalry high school conference game like this prior to this year.
When the seniors who played in this game were freshmen, Georgi and Pohcyly were just getting acclimated to middle school as sixth-graders. Now, they were the stars in an unforgettable final few seconds of action that saw them put a huge damper on Waubonsie Valley's Senior Night.
Off a throw-in in the final minute, Sean Osoba misfired just wide right for the Wildcats, but the deflected shot gave them another opportunity. David Kuhn proceeded to go in on the ball off a corner kick and crossed it in back post, where it was hit back by Georgi. With the final seconds ticking off, Pohcyly secured possession, turned forward and shot, depositing the ball in the net as the clock read 0:00.
"In that situation I knew I didn't have a lot of time, so I had to be quick," Pohcyly said. "I've never had anything happen like this before."
The officials congregated briefly to confirm that the goal did score in the nick of time.
"It's just unfortunate for us, but fortunate for them that they got that last-second - literally last-second - goal," Warriors coach Jose Garcia said. "Who knows if it was actually in time because I heard the clock and (the officials) didn't think so, but that's what soccer is. You never know what is going to happen."
Waubonsie Valley (3-12-1, 0-4-0) rallied in the second half to put itself in position to win.
Noah Glorioso floated a shot just inside the left post to tie the game at 1-1 with 27:20 remaining. The Wildcats enjoyed a 1-0 lead prior to that after Kuhn had followed in his own miss with just 65 seconds left before halftime.
Glorioso then assisted Jorge Gallegos with 23:48 left to play in the game to give the Warriors their first lead at 2-1.
Neuqua Valley (7-7-2, 1-3-0) found the equalizer with 15:36 still remaining when Jack Bella scored.
The teams exchanged some decent chances the rest of the way, including a long boot from Jose Navarro for the Wildcats that caromed off the crossbar with five minutes left.
"I'm happy we got the win," Kuhn said. "I was proud of how hard the guys fought tonight and especially these (freshmen) here for digging deep there at the end."