Soccer: Mustangs Set To Face The Champs

BOLINGBROOK—When the postseason pairings for girls soccer were announced recently, the potential for a Downers Grove South/Waubonsie Valley regional title game looked pretty good.

After Tuesday’s Class 3A Bolingbrook Regional semifinals, the match-up will come true Friday.

The fifth-seeded Mustangs advanced to the 4:30 p.m. title game Friday with a convincing, 6-1 win over No. 12 seed Oswego East Tuesday. Defending state champion Waubonsie Valley, the No. 4 seed, moved on with a 3-0 win over host Bolingbrook in the other semi-final.

“They have a lot of talent,” DGS coach Barry Jacobson said of Waubonsie Valley. “It will be a very good game. It should be a close game, maybe a one-goal game. We match up pretty well. We wanted an opportunity to get to sectionals, so we’ll see. We always play well against them.”

The Mustangs (18-3-1 overall) were able to scratch out a goal while playing against the wind in the first half. Senior Megan Martin put a shot behind freshman Oswego East keeper Cynthia De La Torre with 32:33 left in the first half.

“We knew we had the game in the bag,” DGS junior Jessica Bronke said. “We just wanted to get more goals in and finish it off.”

The Mustangs certainly accomplished that. With the wind at their backs, Downers South scored five goals in a nine-minute stretch to open up a 6-0 lead on Oswego East (11-8-1).

The first one came at the 34:29 mark and proved to be the game winner. A Flo Beshiri corner kick resulted in a Stephanie Zurales shot that hit the crossbar and was put away by Sarah Ludwig. Zurales and Emily Wauer followed with goals before Bronke capped the scoring with a pair of goals.

“I think the wind had a lot to do with it,” Jacobson said. “The wind was tough. We were happy to get a goal to get ahead (in the first half), because we were having a hard time getting the ball behind them with the wind. But we held them off.”

Oswego East coach Lauren Anderson was pleased with her team’s first half against the more experienced and bigger Downers South team. The Wolves avoided the shutout on Brittany Brewer’s goal with 24:31 left in the game.

“They not only held it 1-0, we competed,” Anderson said. “We weren’t just defending the whole time. Hopefully they’ll gain a little confidence for next season because we have basically the same team coming back (only four seniors graduate).”

The Wolves know that they face an uphill battle in the loaded sectional they find themselves in every year, but Anderson feels that through six varsity seasons they are making progress.

“The sectional we’re in has incredible talent,” Anderson said. “Every year, we’re getting better at the end of the season tournament because this is one of the first years that we at least competed. Even though the score doesn’t really show that at the end, I know that we did compete against a very talented team.”

Downers South will be looking for its first trip to sectionals since finishing fourth in the state in 2008, and can finally look ahead to facing the defending state champions after clearing Tuesday’s hurdle.

“We just want to go out and win regionals, because we haven’t done it since we went to state the last time,” Bronke said. “We just take it one step at a time and not look too far ahead, because if we get too far ahead of ourselves, it could go downhill.”