Benet goes on the offensive
The Benet girls soccer team is starting to put up offensive numbers that might make its softball team jealous.
The Redwings put 6 goals on the board on Monday night and cruised to a 6-2 victory over Wheaton Academy in West Chicago. They’ve now outscored their last three opponents 17-3.
“We have the ability offensively, and we struggled a bit earlier where we were controlling things and setting things up but not finishing,” Benet coach Bob Gros said. “We had a lull over Easter weekend or whatever it was and guess what we worked on? Our offensive scheme.”
Benet (9-4-0) had little trouble throughout the contest in creating scoring chances and more importantly, finishing them.
The Redwings trailed briefly, after an Ally Witt goal in the first half, but Jamie Borges responded just 33 seconds later with the equalizer.
Catherine Caniglia found the back of the net with 8:47 left in the first half and the Redwings continued the onslaught when Katie Michalik connected with 6:30 remaining.
“When we make runs, we make hard runs,” Gros said. “If you look at how my scheme works, we’re deep enough and I put in four or five new offensive players in the first half and we’ve got fresh legs out there with just as much speed so it’s not much of of drop-off.”
Wheaton Academy (4-4) wasn’t playing with the freshest of legs, and it showed.
“I don’t like to make excuses, but I’m going to one now — this was our fifth game in seven days,” Wheaton Academy’s Crystal Thomas said. “Our legs were kind of dead.”
Thomas assisted on both goals for the losers,
Neither squad was able to do much in the second half until it was more than half over.
After the Redwings pulled ahead 4-1, Wheaton Academy cut the lead in half on a free kick from Thomas to Meredith Matson, but the Redwings answered right back when Amanda Kaiser converted a PK off a handball violation with 12:47 left.
Thomas had 2 shots just miss in the final six minutes before Benet’s Diana Kinn connected to make it a 6-2 contest.
“We’ll be ready next time,” Thomas said. “I think playing these games early on, whether we’re ready or not, will help prepare us so we can finish strong.”