Metea uses “Cruz” control to top Neuqua
Goalie’s stellar 1st half, Lang’s 2nd half brace lift Metea to 3-0 win
By Matt Le Cren
AURORA – Billy Heniades’ first shot of the game Tuesday night should have resulted in a goal.
Ditto with his second shot.
Instead, neither found the back of the net thanks to Metea Valley goalkeeper Gandhi Cruz, who made outstanding stops on the Neuqua Valley striker.
Cruz, in fact, was the reason the host Mustangs won despite not recording a shot in the first half. The sophomore recorded six saves and kept his team in the game long enough for the offense to get going, which it did for a 3-0 victory in the DuPage Valley Conference opener for both teams.
“I just decided to play my game,” Cruz said. “I saw that my players were down a little bit.
“I took it on me to just play my game and play my hardest. If anything goes in, it’s in, but just go for everything.”
That’s what Cruz did just three minutes into the game when Heniades, who won the DVC’s Golden Boot award last year, appeared poised to open the scoring.
Jason Benjamin curled a perfectly placed cross in from the left wing to just outside the 6, where Heniades volleyed it toward the lower right corner. Just as the Neuqua fans were rising to celebrate, Cruz fully extended to his left to tip the ball into the post.
“That was a great save by him,” Heniades said. “It was going lower 90, and I thought that was going in. But he just reached out, got that tip, and it hit the post.
“(I) almost (had) two very sweet goals, and we kept having good chances in the first half, but that was a great save.”
While it didn’t do much initially to turn the game in Metea’s favor, that first save got Cruz’s adrenaline flowing.
“Definitely. Once I made that save I was like, ‘If I can make that save I can make many more,’” Cruz said. “So it just kept me going.”
Neuqua Valley (2-3-0, 0-1-0) kept coming at the Mustangs throughout the first half, controlling nearly all of the possession. But Metea’s backline stiffened, and Cruz bailed it out when it didn’t.
Cruz denied Heniades again with 8:35 remaining in the first half. This time Neuqua’s David Kuhn hoisted a long throw-in from the left side toward the top of the box.
Heniades pounded on it and hit a rocket from 18 yards out, but Cruz leaped and tipped it over the crossbar.
“He definitely had plenty of saves,” Neuqua Valley coach Arnoldo Gonzalez said. “We talk about those two, but it was like there was a big wall.
“We had so many rebounds thinking the ball is in, but it’s clearly an indication that when you have chances -- and we had about six -- and you don’t put them in, it’s just that type of night.”
As Cruz continued to keep the visitors at bay, Metea Valley (3-1-1, 1-0-0) started thinking maybe it had a chance.
“(The first half) was bad,” Metea Valley junior Evan Lang said. “(Cruz’s play) gave us confidence.
“He’s working his (posterior) off. Honestly, if he does it we should be able to do it too, so give credit to him.”
Lang deserves some credit too. The midfielder scored on both of his shots, including Metea Valley’s first attempt of the match, to lead the Mustangs shocking turnaround after intermission.
Neuqua held an 8-0 advantage in shots in the first half, but Metea outshot the Wildcats 11-3 in the second half.
“Great response from the boys,” Metea Valley coach Josh Robinson said. “It was a hot mess of a first half.
“At halftime we didn’t really talk anything tactically. It was more just, ‘Hey, let’s get checked in.'
“Our first touches were panicky, but Gandhi saved us in the first half. He kept us in the game, and the defense did a tremendous job. Then we came out in the second half and all of a sudden it’s like a different team.”
Lang stunned Neuqua Valley with 36:09 to go in the game when he ran onto a lead pass from Jaylen Brooks in the right side of the box and sent a shot inside the far post.
“Coach lit a flame under us (at halftime),” Lang said. “He said it’s the first conference game, rival school, don’t be afraid of them. They haven’t accomplished anything that we haven’t yet, so go out there and play your game with energy.
“We started quick right off the second half with a quick play, caught them lacking. The first goal really gave us momentum.”
Indeed, it was quickly followed by a second goal, which also was authored by Lang, who now has five goals on the season.
This was the result of a pretty diagonal tic-tac-toe play, which began with a cross from the right end line into the 6, where James Lynch used a back-heel volley to send it on to Lang, who buried a short shot inside the left post at the 30:49 mark.
Lynch made it 3-0 with 17:43 remaining, taking a pass from Shareef Amor and blowing by a defender before scoring on a 22-yard shot.
The second half blitz overhwhelmed Neuqua Valley.
“They came out stronger than us, definitely, in the second half,” Heniades said. “We lost Jose Navarro at halftime with stitches (to his head).
“He’s a core player in the middle, but we still should have come out a bit stronger I feel like. We lacked a bit of communication.
“These are all just things to work on. We’ve got to put a few in the back of the net as well as keeping them out.”
With Navarro out of the game, Metea’s midfield led by Joe Donovan, Ryan Barry and Matthew Berry had more room to operate.
“We lose a player at halftime, your holding midfielder (who is) pretty much doing all your dirty work, and that’s not good,” Gonzalez said. “It definitely showed in the second half.
“Things were ugly. We didn’t have possession and so when you don’t have possession you’re not going to create anything.”
Even so, Gonzalez was still upbeat until Lang scored his second goal.
“Even at 1-nil I didn’t think anything (bad) was going to happen because you can bounce back,” Gonzalez said. “To me it was like, ‘OK, we lost focus, it was a lucky goal, we can get it back.’ But we didn’t.”
The reason for that, Cruz said, was simple.
“It was just hard work,” Cruz said. “We didn’t have much hard work in the first half.
“Coach talked to us. We gave it our all, and that’s what changed the game.”
Starting lineups
Neuqua Valley
GK Dylan Soto
D Nathan Ashta
D Nate Kuper
D Kevin Wu
D Edon Kosova
M Matthew Miller
M Jose Navarro
M Amish Gupta
M Jason Benjamin
F Billy Heniades
F Daniel Costea
Metea Valley
GK Gandhi Cruz
D Anthony Sanchez
D Jakob Dovalovsky
D Ethan Ytterberg
D Ethan Williams
M Joey Donovan
M Evan Lang
M Abraham Antar
F Jaylen Brooks
F James Lynch
F Shareef Amor
Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match – Gandhi Cruz, so., GK, Metea Valley.
Scoring summary
Second half
Metea Valley – Evan Lang (Jaylen Brooks) 36:09
Metea Valley – Lang (James Lynch) 30:49
Metea Valley – Lynch (Shareef Amor) 17:43
Goalie’s stellar 1st half, Lang’s 2nd half brace lift Metea to 3-0 win
By Matt Le Cren
AURORA – Billy Heniades’ first shot of the game Tuesday night should have resulted in a goal.
Ditto with his second shot.
Instead, neither found the back of the net thanks to Metea Valley goalkeeper Gandhi Cruz, who made outstanding stops on the Neuqua Valley striker.
Cruz, in fact, was the reason the host Mustangs won despite not recording a shot in the first half. The sophomore recorded six saves and kept his team in the game long enough for the offense to get going, which it did for a 3-0 victory in the DuPage Valley Conference opener for both teams.
“I just decided to play my game,” Cruz said. “I saw that my players were down a little bit.
“I took it on me to just play my game and play my hardest. If anything goes in, it’s in, but just go for everything.”
That’s what Cruz did just three minutes into the game when Heniades, who won the DVC’s Golden Boot award last year, appeared poised to open the scoring.
Jason Benjamin curled a perfectly placed cross in from the left wing to just outside the 6, where Heniades volleyed it toward the lower right corner. Just as the Neuqua fans were rising to celebrate, Cruz fully extended to his left to tip the ball into the post.
“That was a great save by him,” Heniades said. “It was going lower 90, and I thought that was going in. But he just reached out, got that tip, and it hit the post.
“(I) almost (had) two very sweet goals, and we kept having good chances in the first half, but that was a great save.”
While it didn’t do much initially to turn the game in Metea’s favor, that first save got Cruz’s adrenaline flowing.
“Definitely. Once I made that save I was like, ‘If I can make that save I can make many more,’” Cruz said. “So it just kept me going.”
Neuqua Valley (2-3-0, 0-1-0) kept coming at the Mustangs throughout the first half, controlling nearly all of the possession. But Metea’s backline stiffened, and Cruz bailed it out when it didn’t.
Cruz denied Heniades again with 8:35 remaining in the first half. This time Neuqua’s David Kuhn hoisted a long throw-in from the left side toward the top of the box.
Heniades pounded on it and hit a rocket from 18 yards out, but Cruz leaped and tipped it over the crossbar.
“He definitely had plenty of saves,” Neuqua Valley coach Arnoldo Gonzalez said. “We talk about those two, but it was like there was a big wall.
“We had so many rebounds thinking the ball is in, but it’s clearly an indication that when you have chances -- and we had about six -- and you don’t put them in, it’s just that type of night.”
As Cruz continued to keep the visitors at bay, Metea Valley (3-1-1, 1-0-0) started thinking maybe it had a chance.
“(The first half) was bad,” Metea Valley junior Evan Lang said. “(Cruz’s play) gave us confidence.
“He’s working his (posterior) off. Honestly, if he does it we should be able to do it too, so give credit to him.”
Lang deserves some credit too. The midfielder scored on both of his shots, including Metea Valley’s first attempt of the match, to lead the Mustangs shocking turnaround after intermission.
Neuqua held an 8-0 advantage in shots in the first half, but Metea outshot the Wildcats 11-3 in the second half.
“Great response from the boys,” Metea Valley coach Josh Robinson said. “It was a hot mess of a first half.
“At halftime we didn’t really talk anything tactically. It was more just, ‘Hey, let’s get checked in.'
“Our first touches were panicky, but Gandhi saved us in the first half. He kept us in the game, and the defense did a tremendous job. Then we came out in the second half and all of a sudden it’s like a different team.”
Lang stunned Neuqua Valley with 36:09 to go in the game when he ran onto a lead pass from Jaylen Brooks in the right side of the box and sent a shot inside the far post.
“Coach lit a flame under us (at halftime),” Lang said. “He said it’s the first conference game, rival school, don’t be afraid of them. They haven’t accomplished anything that we haven’t yet, so go out there and play your game with energy.
“We started quick right off the second half with a quick play, caught them lacking. The first goal really gave us momentum.”
Indeed, it was quickly followed by a second goal, which also was authored by Lang, who now has five goals on the season.
This was the result of a pretty diagonal tic-tac-toe play, which began with a cross from the right end line into the 6, where James Lynch used a back-heel volley to send it on to Lang, who buried a short shot inside the left post at the 30:49 mark.
Lynch made it 3-0 with 17:43 remaining, taking a pass from Shareef Amor and blowing by a defender before scoring on a 22-yard shot.
The second half blitz overhwhelmed Neuqua Valley.
“They came out stronger than us, definitely, in the second half,” Heniades said. “We lost Jose Navarro at halftime with stitches (to his head).
“He’s a core player in the middle, but we still should have come out a bit stronger I feel like. We lacked a bit of communication.
“These are all just things to work on. We’ve got to put a few in the back of the net as well as keeping them out.”
With Navarro out of the game, Metea’s midfield led by Joe Donovan, Ryan Barry and Matthew Berry had more room to operate.
“We lose a player at halftime, your holding midfielder (who is) pretty much doing all your dirty work, and that’s not good,” Gonzalez said. “It definitely showed in the second half.
“Things were ugly. We didn’t have possession and so when you don’t have possession you’re not going to create anything.”
Even so, Gonzalez was still upbeat until Lang scored his second goal.
“Even at 1-nil I didn’t think anything (bad) was going to happen because you can bounce back,” Gonzalez said. “To me it was like, ‘OK, we lost focus, it was a lucky goal, we can get it back.’ But we didn’t.”
The reason for that, Cruz said, was simple.
“It was just hard work,” Cruz said. “We didn’t have much hard work in the first half.
“Coach talked to us. We gave it our all, and that’s what changed the game.”
Starting lineups
Neuqua Valley
GK Dylan Soto
D Nathan Ashta
D Nate Kuper
D Kevin Wu
D Edon Kosova
M Matthew Miller
M Jose Navarro
M Amish Gupta
M Jason Benjamin
F Billy Heniades
F Daniel Costea
Metea Valley
GK Gandhi Cruz
D Anthony Sanchez
D Jakob Dovalovsky
D Ethan Ytterberg
D Ethan Williams
M Joey Donovan
M Evan Lang
M Abraham Antar
F Jaylen Brooks
F James Lynch
F Shareef Amor
Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match – Gandhi Cruz, so., GK, Metea Valley.
Scoring summary
Second half
Metea Valley – Evan Lang (Jaylen Brooks) 36:09
Metea Valley – Lang (James Lynch) 30:49
Metea Valley – Lynch (Shareef Amor) 17:43