Reavis goalkeeper Diana Gonzalez made a tough decision to give up her senior season of soccer in order to work.
She missed the sport too much, however.
“I was thinking ahead of time, thinking about college and trying to save money,” Gonzalez said. “I decided to work full time and give up soccer.
“As soon as the season started, I knew my heart was in soccer and I didn’t want to miss my senior season, so I came back.”
Gonzalez returned during the second week of the season and eventually earned her starting job back.
She came up with a huge shutout Wednesday night, recording seven saves as the Rams handed host Oak Forest its first loss of the season with a 1-0 decision in a South Suburban Conference crossover.
“I love that I’m playing again,” Gonzalez said. “I’m so thankful that I got the chance to come back. It not only makes me better, but I think it makes our team better.
“I know if they work hard up top, that’s going to motivate me to work twice as hard in goal.”
Reavis (5-3-1, 5-2-1 SSC Red) broke the deadlock with just 1 minute, 27 seconds left when freshman Alyssa Juarez — a reserve midfielder — scored her first high school goal by volleying in Isabel Guzman’s corner kick.
“It deflected off my foot and I wasn’t shocked that I scored, but I was really excited,” Juarez said. “All my teammates supported me. It was nice.”
Gonzalez took care of the rest, coming up huge with six saves in the second half as the Bengals (9-1-1, 6-1-1 SSC Blue) poured on the pressure.
She leaped to punch Amelia Price’s hard 25-yard shot over the crossbar with 26:30 to go and denied Price again on a good look with 10 minutes to go.
“Diana’s brother (Mike) is our assistant coach,” Reavis coach Jeff Grider said. “He told me his sister was working, but she realized it was a mistake and she needed to come back, and I said that was fine.
“She didn’t play right away. I made her work for it. She did, and it’s paying dividends right now. I’m so happy and proud of her.”
Reavis defenders Pam Hernandez, Olivia Smycz, Andy Flores and Emily Chavez also came up huge. Flores marked Western Illinois recruit Rachel Balinao and limited her chances.
“I just had Andy follow her and she shut her out,” Grider said. “Then when she went to the middle, we kind of had three girls bracketing her.
“You could see they didn’t really know what to do with that. When you take away probably the best player in the conference, that’s big.”
The victory kept the Rams atop the SSC Red standings with three games to go, and Grider hopes it will provide a big boost with the playoffs less than two weeks away.
“This is probably one of the biggest wins in our program history,” he said. “Oak Forest is probably the top team in our conference right now and we got them. I’m so proud of the girls. This is a wonderful, magical group.”
Serenity Berrios made two saves for Oak Forest, which will try to bounce back ahead of Friday’s huge SSC Blue game with Lemont.
“I’m not disappointed in how we played,” Oak Forest coach Pam Whitehead said. “We had way more shots. We just had a bad shooting day.
“Of course, the girls are disappointed and they wanted to win the game, but we talk about flushing this stuff down the toilet and starting fresh.”
Steve Millar is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.