Oswego East's second half buries Mustangs

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By Paul La Tour

Judging by the opening two minutes, it seemed Oswego East and Downers Grove South were going to be in a slugfest Thursday evening in Oswego. 

The Mustangs just missed a goal on a 30-yard free kick by Joe Sombeck that Wolves goalie Dakota Bruns punched high in the air and that went up and grabbed in a crowd.

Seconds later the Wolves nearly got on the board on a long run by Jorge Alvarez, whose shot from the left side missed just wide of the far post. Alvarez quickly had another opportunity, but his left-footed shot from the top of the penalty area was snatched by Nick Tannenbaum.

Although things settled down from there, the Wolves came away with a 3-1 victory because they were able to continue getting the better chances on a night where the heat and humidity forced both teams to substitute liberally.

Marco Alvarez notched two goals and his twin brother, Jorge, added an insurance goal to secure the win for the Wolves, who improved to 3-1-1.

“For about 30 minutes or so they completely dominated us in the first half,” Wolves coach Steve Szymanski said. “We were just hanging on. We weren’t playing with much energy. In the second half we hustled more and worked more as a team. When we play as a team, we’re pretty good offensively.”

The Mustangs (0-3-1) looked like they had put their offensive woes behind them after falling behind 1-0. Less than 10 minutes later Chris Mendez evened the game by scoring the Mustangs’ first goal of the season.

The Mustangs went to the half leading 11-6 in shot attempts and 7-5 in shots on goal.

But the second half was a completely different story. After an early scoring attempt by the Mustangs was turned away by a Bruns tip over the crossbar, the Wolves started building a relentless attack.

But it wasn’t until the 63rd minute before they could take the lead. Marco Alvarez beat Tannenbaum (eight saves) with a shot just outside the penalty area with 17:38 to play. A minute later he was denied his first varsity hat trick when he rocketed a shot that smacked off the crossbar.

“They were giving me a lot of space up on the 18, so I just shot it,” Alvarez said. “And the one that hit off the crossbar, the kid just gave me so much room I just shot it and hoped it would go in.”

The Wolves iced the game in the 73rd minute when Jorge Alvarez scored on a nice individual effort. He turned one defender at the 18 and then eluded another before scoring his seventh goal of the season.

The Wolves maintained possession for most of the final 7:21 to keep the game out of reach and preventing the Mustangs from popping in another goal.

“We’re putting them in a lot, but we’re giving them up a lot,” Szymanski said of his team, which has outscored its opponents 25-11 this season. “Our defense is a work in progress.”

Still, Szymanski said defenders Ryan Murphy, Oliver Czopek and Danny Ruiz played well in front of Bruns, who finished with nine saves.

The Mustangs left frustrated after losing one of their top players to the heat early in the game. Midfielder and co-captain Cory Mosiman started but only played a short time before succumbing to the weather.

That left the Mustangs with only two seniors on the field. Their starting lineup featured four sophomores and four juniors.

“Our kids compete hard, but we’re a little inexperienced,” Mustangs coach Jon Stapleton said. “But there will come a point in the season where we can’t lean on that anymore. You look at the calendar and you think it’s early, but we’re almost four weeks in. We need to start to grow up a little bit.

“It’s been a lot of the same mistakes over and over again. Until those get corrected we’re going to be in games, but it’s only going to be a matter of the other team finishing us off.”

Getting a first goal of the season helped after they had gone the first three games without scoring. But the momentum didn’t carry over to the second half. Sombeck, the lone remaining captain after Mosiman left, said the heat was bad but didn’t want to use it as an excuse.

“You could just tell everyone was exhausted, but we probably should have been able to play through it,” Sombeck said. “That first goal lifted a monkey off our back and then we had all the energy. We came out in the second half and we just didn’t have that energy. I don’t know why we lost it. We just did.”