Tired Wheaton Academy holds off West Chicago
Wheaton Academy might have celebrated its 3-1 nonconference girls soccer victory at West Chicago a little more if it weren’t so tired.
Playing three games in as many days will do that to you.
“It’s not easy, but it’s so much fun,” said midfielder Emily Mascari, a freshman from Geneva whose Warriors also play Thursday and Saturday in a very busy stretch.
West Chicago made sure it wasn’t easy, putting a lot of pressure on the Wheaton Academy goal, especially in the second half. The Wildcats didn’t have much to show for that pressure, though, and Mascari was part of the reason why. She cleared a couple of West Chicago shots out of the goalmouth on a harrowing series in the second half.
“The first one was a cross and it went in and I guess I just got in the right spot in the first time and I cleared it out,” Mascari said. “They put it in a second time and I happened to be there the second time also. ...”
“We definitely got lucky on that one.”
The Warriors (6-4) took a 1-0 lead in the 10th minute when Ally Witt took a long Molly Thorson pass, beat a defender and slotted a shot into the West Chicago net. In the 21st minute freshman Kayla Kirkwood evened the score on a counterattack after a Wheaton Academy free kick. Andie Lazzerine’s pass sent Kirkwood behind the defense, and one deke was all she needed to have an open look at the net.
“With their style of play, they turn and they take it right at you,” said Warriors coach Dave Underwood, admitting his players are tired. “And we were struggling a little bit with that, particularly in the first half. We felt like we were overcommitting, diving in. Not that we were trying to ride out a 2-1 lead, but we did talk at halftime about let’s just play conservatively, let’s make sure we take care of defending, finding our marks, keep everything in front of us. It’s not a pretty style, we know it’s not, win the ball, bang it deep and if we can get on the other end of it, great. If not, we’ll take a 2-1 win. That’s fine with us.”
But the game turned on a 27th-minute penalty kick that senior Crystal Thomas converted for a 2-1 Warriors lead.
Ally Manske got the third goal for Wheaton Academy against the run of play in the 51st after Abby Olson’s shot ricocheted off the goal post right to her.
It was the kind of luck West Chicago (4-9-1) could have used, but coach J. Cesar Gomez is relentlessly optimistic about his team.
“It’s hard to celebrate a loss, but the way we played, but hey, we played the game well and we need one of the lucky goals that they got,” Gomez said. “Soccer is like that. Every now and then can humble you a little bit and we’ve been humbled now for a long time.”