Brookfield East's goal in final seconds ends West's soccer season

It took a perfect shot by Brookfield East sophomore Aubrey Prey with 13 seconds left in the second overtime to hand Wauwatosa West a 3-2 loss on June 2 at Brookfield East.

Prey, a 5-foot-7-inch forward, got a deflected ball in front of the goal and drilled the winning shot over leaping goalkeeper Marley Eckblad, thus avoiding a penalty kick shootout.

"It was a good hit," a deflated West coach Ryan Bailey said. "It's not a bad goal to lose on if there is one thing to look at. She hit it well. It wasn't anything we got cheated on."

Prey said she knew the shot was good when she saw Eckblad's reaction.

"As soon as I saw her looking up, I knew it was over the top of her, and I started thinking 'This is it, this is it,'" Prey said. "I knew there wasn't going to be any time left."

Senior co-captain Abby Gregg had no intention of seeing the game go to a shootout.

"We weren't going to let it happen," she said. "It's something (shootouts) we work on it practice, but it never works. It always comes down to luck or the goalie taking a chance and guessing right."

Lead vanishes

Unfortunately for the Trojans, the match never should have went to overtime, let alone a game-winning shot in the final seconds.

Tosa West, champions of the Woodland Conference, had scored twice on goals by sophomore Emily O'Connell off a pass from senior Gaby Zabala at 57:36 and an unassisted goal by the talented Zabala at 74:04, scoring on a rebound shot East goalkeeper Mia Galang initially stopped.

As big a goal as Prey's was, Gregg had a momentum-shifting goal with 68 minutes on the clock.

Gregg, who was having a tough night making accurate passes and taking good shots but coming up empty, came through big time in the 78th minute.

Taking a ball on the right side of the net, she drilled a shot into the upper left corner to get the Spartans on the board.

"We've had a tendency to get down if the other team scores, and I told myself, 'If we get down, we're going to come back quickly,'" Gregg said. "I was not going to let this be my last game."

East struck back quickly, as Gregg hit Prey, who was racing down the middle of the field with a beautiful pass, and she converted the tying goal.

Too content

"When we were up, 1-0, there was an injury, and we talked about being too content," Bailey said. "Then we went out and got the second goal. We weathered the storm and went to overtime. We had had two chances but couldn't score. They took their one chance in 20 minutes, and it was a good hit."

"Wauwatosa gave us everything we could handle," East coach Derrick Banks added. "Down 2-0 we were hoping to tie it up, and we showed a lot of heart. We were finally able to put enough pressure on them to put some through."

After meeting with his team the final after the game, Bailey said "I told them I was so proud of them. They shouldn't be sad about anything. We were up 2-0; that's exactly what we wanted. Overtime usually comes down to one special play. They made it, we didn't. With 13 seconds left, it didn't give us much time to come back from."