On one hand, Thursday’s soccer game between Joliet West and Minooka meant very little. The playoff seedings are already set and both teams know where they’ll be playing to open the 3A bracket.

On the other hand, it was an opportunity for both teams to get a feel for where they’re at and one team to build some momentum.

For Minooka, that second thing was absolutely true.

After a ho-hum first half for both teams, the Indians exploded in the second half for four goals with two coming in a 60-second span. The result was a 5-1 victory at Joliet West to finish the season 10-9.

Minooka had the possession advantage in the first half, but that only resulted in a slim, one-goal lead as the Indians got a feel for things. The second half started a touch slow as well before stretching it to two, only for the Tigers to trim it to 2-1 with 20 minutes left to go.

Minooka’s Alyson Felix scored a goal 30 seconds later and added a second 22 seconds after that to retake control.

“It was fun,” Minooka coach Chris Brolley said. “Anytime you have three goals in under 90 seconds it’s exciting, especially when you’re scoring two of them. We made some plays at the right time. It was good to get the jump after they put one on us.”

As for what led to the sudden uptick in the Indians’ play, Brolley had a multitude of theories.

“Maybe we just woke up a bit,” he said. “Maybe we just focused a little bit more. It was a competitive game in the first half, we just had to make some adjustments in the second half that played a role in the game.”

Again, the playoff seedings were already set before Thursday. But for Minooka, in particular, a big win like this was critical for momentum.

The Indians began the year just 4-8, including a four game skid from April 22-28. Since then, though, it’s been mostly smiles as they’ve won six of their past seven, including four in a row.

Ending the regular season on a win is important, but ending with a hot streak is even more important.

“Ending the season well is always a good thing,” Brolley said. “We went through the gauntlet of teams in Naperville and then we finally hit our stride. We’ve won (six of seven) and we’re feeling good.”

The first goal, and only goal of the first half, came 15 minutes in when Faith Sieloff snuck one in the back of the net to give Minooka a 1-0 halftime edge.

Callie Hefner, a Marquette commit, extended the Indians lead to 2-0 with 27 minutes left to play.

With 20 minutes remaining, Joliet West finally got on the board as Jovi Biancorosso put one in from short distance to cut it to 2-1. It was short-lived as Felix answered 30 seconds later and once more right after to put it out of reach.

Hefner scored one last time with 1:31 to go to give the game its final score.

“We changed our mentality at halftime,” Felix said. “We talked about what we needed to work on and we made the changes necessary. We made better plays and got to the ball.”

Joliet West (10-10) entered the game at a disadvantage down four starters and three bench players. The Tigers will hope for better health when they play fifth seeded Moline in the Moline Regional semifinals at 6 p.m. Tuesday.

The Tigers will be the fourth seed as part of the Normal Community Sectional.

Minooka will be the third seed in the sectional and will host sixth seeded Bradley-Bourbonnais in the Minooka Regional semis at 6 p.m. Tuesday. Hefner believes Thursday’s win will help prepare them for that contest.

“It’s really big,” Hefner said. “It gets us in the right mindset. We know who we’re playing next so just to beat a really tough team gives us good confidence to go and win the next one.”