Boys soccer: La Salle-Peru’s Brayan Gonzalez nets late game-winner against Ottawa

OTTAWA – With time winding down in a tied match, La Salle-Peru senior Brayan Gonzalez found an opening in the Ottawa defense and made the most of it.

Off a tremendous throw-in by Jason Curran from the south sideline of the King Field pitch, Gonzalez leaped high in the air and headed the ball into the corner of the Pirates’ goal with about 10 minutes remaining.

“It was great to see it hit the back of the net.”

—  Brayan Gonzalez, La Salle-Peru senior on his game-winning goal against rival Ottawa

The visiting Cavaliers made the goal stand up for a 3-2, Interstate 8 Conference victory Thursday night.

“I heard one of the Ottawa players tell his teammate to mark me, but evidently there was some miscommunication between them, because I was pretty much all alone in the middle of the box,” Gonzalez said. “I pointed to the open spot for Jason to throw the ball, and he put it right there. It was a great throw-in by him. As the ball was coming to me, I was just telling myself to head it on target.

“It was great to see it hit the back of the net.”

The win improved L-P to 7-6 overall, 3-5 in league play and avenged a 4-3 (4-3) loss on penalty kicks to the Pirates on Sept. 11 at the L-P Sports Complex.

“He’s a senior, had an older brother in this program and has himself been playing all four years,” L-P coach David Spudic said of Gonzalez. “He is a kid who is very talented but is also always looking to get better. He made a number of really smart plays tonight for us, especially on the final goal, where he put himself in the best position to score.”

L-P, which trailed in the team’s first meeting before a second-half comeback, this time grabbed the lead midway into the first half when Gonzalez ran down a lead pass from Ismael Mejia and sent a 15-yard shot past Ottawa keeper Brady Wendt (five saves).

“We talk all the time about whether we are playing a very good team or a team that maybe is not as good, we have to play the way we play in the system we play,” Spudic said. “We want to possess the ball, make good, quick, crisp passes to feet. This was a little more physical game than we are used to, but the guys did a good job of keeping it clean, playing through it and playing a pretty solid match.”

Ottawa (10-7-2, 3-6) tied the game in the 28th minute when Jorge Lopez headed in a corner kick by Alexio Fernandez between a pair of Cavaliers’ defenders.

“As it usually is between us, it was a good matchup tonight,” Ottawa coach Kevin Olesen said. “I have to really credit my guys for really playing hard from start to finish and also finding ways to come back twice to get the match tied up. We just couldn’t find a way in those last 10 minutes to do it a third time.”

The visitors took a 2-1 lead with 16:43 remaining in the contest when Mejia stole a clearing pass and rocketed a 45-yard shot past a diving Wendt and into the net.

The hosts tied the match 26 seconds later when Lopez was ruled to have been tripped in the box, then sent his ensuing penalty kick past diving L-P keeper Abraham Garcia (six saves).

La Salle-Peru held a 16-11 advantage in total shots, with each side recording eight attempts on net.

“I don’t really have many concerns with how we played tonight, especially in the second half,” Olesen said. “We made some adjustments at halftime with some of our coverages and closed some gaps we felt we were leaving open. The guys did an excellent job of executing what we talked about.

“This group has a lot of heart, and I know we still have a lot of good soccer still left in us for the rest of the season.”

L-P is back in action Saturday with a match at Serena.

Ottawa travels to take on Sycamore on Monday in another I-8 contest.