By Bobby Narang
The Metea Valley High School girls soccer team ended an unlikely season with an unlikely ending.
The Mustangs closed out the best season in program history, recently, by beating Barrington, 1-0, in the biggest-school Class 3A State championship game at North Central College in Naperville. The Mustangs won the championship game in penalty kicks when senior Abbey Ondrus nailed her shot into the back of the net to hand the Mustangs a 6-5 edge and a 1-0 game victory.
In State championships Saturday, June 11:
• St. Charles North won the girls 4A softball tournament with a 3-2 victory against Chicago Marist in the championship game in Peoria. Edwardsville defeated Barrington, 4-3, for third place. North defeated Edwardsville, 2-0, in a semifinal. In Class 3A, Lemont defeated Chicago St. Ignatius Prep, 1-0, in the championship game.
• Nazareth Academy of LaGrange Park won the Class 3A baseball State tournament with victories over both Crystal Lake South, 16-3, and Glenwood, 5-1. In 4A, Chicago Brother Rice defeated McHenry, 14-4, in the championship game.
In the girls soccer championship match, in spite of 100 minutes of action, the Class 3A game came down to a dramatic conclusion penalty kicks in front of a large crowd at Benedetti-Wehrli Stadium. Goalie Julia Straub saved the penalty kicks.
“Barrington gave us everything we could handle, and then more, but somehow we found a way to fight tooth and nail to get into overtime, then PKs,” Metea Valley head coach Chris Whaley said.
The Mustangs, 22-2-1, defeated several powerhouses en route to the State championship by knocking off District 204 rival Neuqua Valley, Naperville North, Edwardsville, and Lincoln-Way Central, to land a spot in the State championship game for the first time in program history.
The Mustangs, based in Aurora, added Barrington, 23-3, to the defeated list and added another layer to their run to the State championship considering Barrington had won two State championships in the previous four seasons. The Mustangs closed out the season with 14 straight victories.
“We knew that this team was good, but I didn’t know if we were ready for this (State championship),” Whaley said. “I knew that we could do it, and they knew that they could do it, but actually making it happen is not easy.…All of those struggles made us better, from last year, the year before, and the year before that. It built our mentality and the way that we approached things every day with the girls.”
Whaley gave credit to Straub for leading the team during some tense moments, providing solid play and leadership. The Mustangs did not lose a single match to a team from the State.
“In the whole playoffs, (goalie) Julia (Straub) is by far the MVP,” he said. “She’s the best goalie in the State, and she showed why, game-in and game-out in the last two weeks. She deserves all of the credit in the world, and the girls that stepped up and buried their shots, like Abbey Ondrus at the end, it was unbelievable determination.
“They did it all together.”