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Sports

Girls Soccer: Neuqua Wins Battle of the Valleys

Neuqua Valley 2, Waubonsie Valley 1. Nation's No. 1 team knocks off defending state champion Warriors in conference opener.

AURORA – It wasn’t pretty, as  girls soccer coach Joe Moreau said after Tuesday’s Upstate Eight Valley match against , but the Wildcats will take it.

Neuqua, which moved up to No. 1 in the Powerade Fab 50national rankings this week, remained unbeaten by recovering from its first deficit of the season with a pair of Gianna Dal Pozzo goals to win 2-1 and move to 6-0 overall. Waubonsie, winners of three state titles in the past four years and ranked No. 48 nationally, fell to 2-2.

“Hand it to Waubonsie defensively,” Moreau said. “They were pretty sound. I thought we were just whacking the ball rather than playing to feet. But, it’s a rivalry and the girls were kind of wound up.”

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That showed early on, as the Wildcats trailed for the first time all season. They tore through their first four opponents by a combined score of 15-0 before winning the Downers Grove South Invitational title by a 2-1 count over DGS on Saturday.

On Tuesday, Waubonsie freshman Kristen Brots converted a cross from Kristen Dodson to give the Warriors a 1-0 lead with 24:41 left in the first half.

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“We weren’t marking in the back,” Moreau said. “I think it was miscommunication in the back, that’s what it came down to. We have a lot to work on.”

The lead for Waubonsie, however, was short-lived. A cross from Zoey Goralski found Dal Pozzo, whose header tied the game at 1-1 with 22:05 left in the half.

Then later in the first half, Hope D’Addario fed the ball into a crowd and Dal Pozzo was able to punch it in with 11:04 left, a goal that proved to be the game winner. It was her fifth goal of the young season.

“Even though we got behind, we just knew that we had to get back and follow through,” Dal Pozzo said. “Someone hit it and it just came to me. I was like two yards off the line, so I just chested it and spun around and hit it and it went in. My play wasn’t the best but we needed the goals. They were kind of sloppy but we got them in.”

Neuqua controlled play from there, although the Wildcats did not score again. They got off four shots on goal in the second half, while limiting the young Warriors to only one shot in the second half.

“I think we all tried as hard as we could,” Waubonsie defender Michelle Filipek said. “We have a lot of new girls, so they’re not used to this pressure. We’ll keep getting better.”

Neuqua travels to Hazelwood, Mo. for a pair of showcase games against two of Missouri's top programs this weekend, with the target of being No. 1 in the nation on its back.

But no matter what the rankings or records say, a game against Waubonsie is still a rivalry game, and they Wildcats are happy to move on with the win.

“We just got into a slump today,” Dal Pozzo said. “Against Waubonsie, it just gets to our heads. We have to look at it like it’s just another team.”

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