South Elgin falls victim to the Neuqua Valley attack

By Gary Larsen

There was room for the contradictory feelings of pride and complete dissatisfaction for South Elgin, after the Storm lost to top-ranked Neuqua Valley.

That South Elgin rolled into Naperville with a 7-1-1 record overall and a mark of 3-0 in Upstate Eight Conference play was a tribute to the distance the program has come this season.

But you can’t lose 8-0 and feel too good afterwards.

“We’re proud of (the season), yes, but we definitely expected a lot more than this,” Storm senior Bart Mazurek said after Tuesday’s loss. “Even after the first two goals, we could have woken up and started playing the way we should.”

Neuqua’s 3-0 lead by the game’s 7th minute showed what the Wildcats’ fast pace and precision game can do in a very short amount of time.

“You’d go to pressure a defender, and it’d be gone. Somebody else would pressure, and it’d be gone,” Storm coach Mark Neville said. “Every time we’d go to pressure a ball it would be gone, and we had all kinds of gaps.”

“There were things we did in this game that we haven’t done in any other game, as far as pressuring under control from the start, supporting our defense if someone is pressuring the ball – there are things we stress in training that we just didn’t do today. We were ball-watching because it was such a quick, precise game they were playing.”

Neuqua, ranked No. 4 nationally by the National Coaches Association of America, led 4-0 at halftime before sticking four more goals on the scoreboard.

“Terrible defense, not marking your man, too slow, not following our marks – it was just terrible,” Mazurek said. “It’s depressing.”

“Not many teams can do what they do. They play fast two-touch. Most of the teams we play even on turf, with a lot of speed – we just weren’t ready for it on this (grass) field.”

“We’ll just put it behind us and see what happens next.”

Neuqua didn’t consider looking past South Elgin even for a second, and the Wildcats came out ready to play from the opening whistle.

“They hadn’t lost since their opener,” Neuqua Valley coach Tony Kees said of the Storm. “They had some momentum and some belief, so we looked at it as being our toughest conference game, and we prepared properly.”

“They don’t read the papers. They don’t know much about (Neuqua),” Neville said. “But they’re outstanding. They’ve got guys all over the place.”

2009 Schedule
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South Elgin starters vs. Neuqua Valley