VILLA PARK – The term must-win is tossed around too much in sports.

On all levels, coaches, players and broadcasters often overuse it to describe the importance of a victory at a particular moment.

For Monday’s game between struggling Morton and one-win Willowbrook, it fit perfectly.

Both teams have dealt with hardship in the first five weeks of the season.

In Morton’s case, a blend of youth combined with injuries to its top two players and veterans, Carisma Rosales and Aaliyah Leanos, have left a major void in on-the-pitch leadership and offensive production in the final third. The Mustangs lost all four of their games in the Plainfield Classic, capped by a frustrating 2-0 defeat to Glenbard East on Saturday.

On the other bench, Willowbrook also lacked offensive punch but not due to injuries. The Warriors entered Monday’s game with one win in nine games, including a seven-match winless streak (0-5-2). They had scored just five goals all season.

Something had to give on a pleasant Monday night, and it did thanks to the West Suburban Conference’s overtime policy.

Just as expected, the teams battled well and struggled to find a goal. Eighty minutes of regulation wasn’t enough time to solve the offensive issues.

Rosales, a Marquette recruit, closed out the game in stunning fashion by drilling in a free kick from the 24-yard line into the far-left upper corner for a 1-0 victory in the first minute of overtime for a golden-goal win over Willowbrook.

The forward, who scored 23 goals last season, knocked the shot into the net and was mugged by her teammates in a massive celebration just :56 seconds into the first overtime.

The senior was all smiles in the postgame, calling her first goal of the season a big relief after dealing with a preseason ankle injury that bothered her for a few weeks after she returned to the pitch.

“It was a pretty stressful game, just one miss after another,” Rosales said. “I was going to shoot high on the (free kick). It felt good. Obviously, it was a tough game for both halves. We put in the effort as a team and played hard. It was a good effort overall. The two tournaments before this (the Windy City Ram and Plainfield classics) were really a struggle. This might be a good push for the team.”
 
Rosales said she was happy to put the Mustangs back in the win column, plus lead them to a victory in their opening conference game. She had four good shots in the final 20 minutes of regulation but couldn’t convert.

“It feels good to be back and to help the team,” Rosales said. “We have a lot of games ahead of us, so we have a lot more effort to put in.”

The Mustangs (5-6-0, 1-0-0) head into Tuesday’s road game against Proviso East with some momentum following the late victory. Willowbrook (1-7-2, 0-2-0) will have some time off before traveling to Hinsdale South for a 6:30 p.m. Gold Division game on April 23.

Morton junior defender Romina Lopez said her team experienced several ups and downs during a match that mirrored their season.

“That goal felt really good, and we really needed this win to get our motivation up,” Lopez said. “We needed to get out of our heads, to show we could do this and win a game. 

“This is possible and showed we can win conference. That’s one of our goals. We had to put our frustrations aside and keep playing. Overtime was something to look forward to and end the game. We just kept working and put the frustration aside from having to play overtime to got into the game.

“We just had to get up there offensively. In the end, we were able to get the free kick. It was a tough game. We were getting in our heads, but in the end we were able to finish it. There was a lot of talking, but we were able to calm down. We talked to each other and calmed each other down. We had a good connection and that helped calm some of us down.”

“I felt such a big relief that her shot went in,” Morton junior midfielder Stephanie Salmeron said. “At first, I didn’t know if it went in or not. It was little hard to tell, because everybody just stood there. There’re always things to work on as a team. We should be able to capitalize and work on those things and get better throughout the final part of the season. This was a good first conference win.”

Throughout the tense and physical game, Rosales, the Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match, was the main source of attention. Her awe-inspiring 1-v-1 skills tested and pushed Willowbrook’s backline and goalie Payton Brose all game long. That was especially true in the second half when Rosales turned it up in a notch in a quest to end the game in regulation following a stern halftime talk from Morton coach Jim Bageanis.

“We warned them before the game that the longer we let Willowbrook stay in it that it can go either way at any time,” Bageanis said. “We had some better chances in the second half. We were really stagnant in the first half. The effort was not there in the first half in my opinion. 

“The girls heard about it at halftime. We turned it on a bit more and had more chances in the second half, but we’re still way off. We need to have a better effort. It’s always good to come out with a win, but it was an ugly win. We were lucky to get it.”

Brose recorded three saves in the loss. 

“We held them pretty well, and it was great game for us,” Brose said. “I feel our defense worked really well for us against this team. They had speed up-top, and I think Halie Ahrens played well against (Rosales). There was a lot of traffic on that goal. It was an unlucky goal for us. I think it was an even game, and just came down to that. We played well all game.

“We realized they were playing a lot of through-balls, and they were trying to chip us. I just tried to keep my line higher just in case we can’t catch them offsides.”

Rosales was aggressive in the first half, firing three hard-hit shots in the final 18 minutes before the intermission. But only her last shot of the half was on target, and Brose saved it in the 38th minute. The two-time all-stater, had a goal waved off in the 51st minute due to an offsides call. She nearly recorded several assists and goals over the final 20 minutes of the game, setting up Salmeron twice for close shots and Karina Estrada once.

Rosales fired an attempt over the crossbar in the 67th minute that caused her to fall to the turf. Willowbrook’s closest attempt for a goal in the second half came on a shot that was saved in the 41st minute by Morton goalie Yaritza Padilla, who recorded four stops.

Willowbrook senior defender Grace Soltys said it was tough way to lose a game, mainly because the entire team battled to hold the Mustangs without a goal in regulation.

“I thought our defending was really good, but we have to work on attacking and getting the ball up there through the midfield,” Soltys said. “We do find ourselves having gaps in the midfield and struggling to keep the ball in the midfield. We’re trying to work on that. I thought our backline did pretty good.”

Willowbrook coach Julio DelReal said he saw his team grow in the defeat.

“This is a game in which we came in hoping for a new start for us, because of the way we’ve been playing,” DelReal said. “I thought the girls did a really nice job. We have trouble generating offense, but our defensive play overall was very nice. 

“My four defenders – Grace Soltys, Annabelle Thompson, Charlotte Lowe and Halie Ahrens – all played great. Halie did a great job as a sweeper. She did a great job covering for her teammates up-front. The stuff that was able to get by Halie, I thought Payton did a nice job coming out. We talked about getting bits and pieces and celebrating. This is probably the first time all season we have played the full 80 minutes very well. This is a moral victory. Hopefully, we can start producing more offense and get a couple more wins.”

Real said a game-changing player, like Rosales, are hard to stop for 80 minutes, let alone in extra time.

“How do you defend a shot like that? It was a great shot,” he said. “It was so hard to cover her like we did for so long. With great players like that, you can only keep them off the board for so long.”
 

Starting lineups
 
Morton
GK: Yaritza Padilla
D: Isabel Sanchez
D: Emily Orduna
D: Romina Lopez
D: Karina Estrada
MF: Mayrin Sanchez
MF: Stephanie Salmeron
MF: Brigitte Solano
MF: Crystal Ozuna
F: Carisma Rosales
F: Adamary Huitron
 
Willowbrook
GK: Payton Brose
D: Halie Ahrens
D: Annabelle Thompson
D: Charlotte Lowe
D: Grace Soltys
MF: Camryn Warnke
MF: Emma Anderlik
MF: Emily Barth                          
MF: Natalia Garcia-Avila
MF: Liz Tretina
F: Lillian Macias
 
Chicagoland MVP of the Match: Carisma Rosales, sr., F, Morton
 

Scoring summary
 
First half
No scoring
 
Second half
No scoring

First overtime
Morton: Rosales (free kick), 81’