Wildcats cruise to win past East Aurora

Updated: March 22, 2011 5:14PM

Neuqua Valley was unable to find the back of the net when it was held to a surprising 0-0 tie at East Aurora on Oct. 7.

The Wildcats wasted little time making sure there would be no repeat of that in the Class 3A Naperville North Sectional semifinals on Thursday.

Jacob Brindle scored on a bullet of a 35-yard shot just 3:56 into the contest and Neuqua Valley cruised to a 3-0 victory to bring East Aurora's best season ever to an end.

The Wildcats (16-3-3) dominated from the start, but the Tomcats' fate was sealed with 26:34 left in the first half when defender Kevin Ortega was given a red card for deliberately shoving Neuqua forward Will Butler to the ground.

East Aurora (17-3-4) was forced to play with 10 men the rest of the way and the Wildcats capitalized just 40 seconds later when Nicko Makropoulos knocked home a cross from Butler to make it 2-0.

"That was great," Makropoulos said of Ortega's ejection. "I'm not going to lie; that gave us so much momentum. We definitely controlled the game after that. The boys were ready to go."

Butler kept his cool, preferring to retaliate with his skills.

"Will was telling us, ‘Put one in now,'" said Makropoulos, who now has four goals. "Will played me the ball and I put it in. It was great."

Butler said there will be no hard feelings on his part.

"Emotions run high and stuff happens in the game," Butler said. "I'm not going to hold [it] against him. He got aggravated about something and started to go at me. He came up behind me and shoved me and put his cleats into my ankles.

"I'm really happy with how our team responded. Everybody kept their composure the whole game."

East Aurora managed just five shots, only one of which was on frame. Neuqua got off 22 shots, with Butler hitting the post and Pat Doody firing one off the crossbar in the second half. Doody finished the scoring with his 12th goal on a 28-yard left-footed blast with 14:15 remaining.

The Wildcats, who will play Naperville North in Saturday's sectional final, were able to play to their strength, unlike they did in their previous meeting with the Tomcats.

"The first time we played them the field [at East Aurora] was small," Makropoulos said. "We're used to playing out wide; we couldn't use our speed. Today we used our speed."

Naperville North (19-2-2) beat Benet 2-1 as Evan Trychta scored twice on penalty kicks in the first half. Sean Mogan scored the only goal for the Redwings (12-9-1) on a penalty kick with 6:37 left in the second half.

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