Third time no charm for Panthers

Scheduling all home dates in the future at Proviso West might be a good idea for the Proviso East soccer team.

The Pirates won all three games they played this fall on the football field at Proviso West.

Proviso East completed the season sweep of its District 209 rival Proviso West with a 4-2 win on Friday in the quarterfinal round of the Downers Grove South Class AA Regional.

The victory sends the No. 17-seeded Pirates into a semifinal round game against top-seeded Downers South at 5 p.m. today in Downers Grove.

The Pirates dropped a 3-1 decision against the Mustangs in the regular season in a West Suburban Conference Gold Division game in Maywood.

The contest was deadlocked at 1-1 after 40 minutes of play.

Proviso East coach David Moss hopes his team will be confident of at least having a shot to shock the soccer world with an upset over the Mustangs.

"I'm going to pull the midfielders back and go with six defenders, and try to counter when we have the chance," Moss said. "We have to use a gimmick or two to try and be successful."

The winner moves into the title game to face either Fenwick or Ridgewood at 11 a.m. Saturday.

Proviso East drew first blood against the Panthers on a goal by Christopher Aceveda with 37 minutes, 29 seconds to play in the first half.

"It's tough to beat a team three times, especially on its home field," Moss said. "This was by far the hardest game to get."

Aceveda headed the ball past Proviso West freshman goalie Mario Arzate, who got burned coming out too far to try and clear a ball in the air.

Aceveda scored another goal on a breakaway with an assist from Oscar Romero with 27:43 to play in the first half to extend the lead to 2-0.

The Panthers were not about to raise a white flag at that point and call it a season quite yet.

Proviso West sliced the deficit in half on a goal by Eduardo Gonzalez with 20:56 to play until halftime.

The momentum never had a chance to change sides thanks to Aceveda responding to the challenge and scoring his third goal of the game 40 seconds later.

The Panthers needed some kind of a spark in the second half to get back into the game and it was provided on a goal by Phillip Molley with 27:45 left in the contest.

Proviso West looked like a different team for the next 10 minutes and kept the ball in its offensive half of the field. Humberto Carrillo narrowly missed scoring the equalizer on a header and on a shot that went just wide left.

Gonzalez had a shot kicked out near the goal mouth by Proviso East defender Brian Alanis, who alertly covered the goal after goalie Andrew Raya left it vacated to try and clear a ball out front.

"We were really attacking," Proviso West coach Ignacio Ponce said. "I wish we had played that way the entire game. We just could not finish. We were too busy playing defense in the first half to score."

"I think we got a little lackadaisical," Moss said. "We have to learn to compete on every possession if we want to win games.

"I knew Proviso West was not going to just give up. His (Ponce) teams never have. It's East and West, and anything can happen in any sport."

The Pirates scored what turned out to be the game winner with 2:46 to play on a goal by Romero.

Proviso West again pulled within a goal after Carrillo tallied with 28.2 seconds remaining. The Panthers managed to get off two shots as the clock ran down.