advertisement

Benet rolls past Glenbard South

Benet was worried that Tuesday’s Class 2A Nazareth sectional semifinal might be a “trap game.”

It turns out it was the Redwings who set the trap.

Top-seeded Benet rolled to a 6-0 victory against No. 4 Glenbard South in LaGrange Park, advancing to Saturday’s sectional final against the winner of today’s Nazareth-Rosary game.

“They sure gave a lot of effort,” Benet coach Bob Gros said of the Raiders. “I thought they worked hard till the very end. They were physical. They did everything they could, but we have a very potent offense, and we scored those six goals today.”

Benet (17-3-4) broke the deadlock in the 14th minute when Catherine Caniglia scored off a rebound of a Meaghan O’Hara shot. Five minutes later Madie Burke’s left-footed free kick from 23 yards found the perfect spot, and Benet led 2-0. Only two minutes passed before Jessica Smetana made it 3-0 with another perfectly placed shot.

“We come at you from a lot of different directions, so our offense is good because it’s unpredictable,” Gros said. “If you take a team like Glenbard South, (Dani Pitaro) is an excellent little player, but we know that and we worked to take (Pitaro) out of the game. Who do they take out?”

Michelle Morefield added goals in the 40th and 69th minutes, and Caniglia converted another rebound in the 58th.

“Right place at the right time, I guess,” Caniglia said.

Glenbard South (10-11-1) knew it would have its hands full against a team like Benet, ranked No. 10 overall.

“It’s going to be hard,” Raiders coach Glen Eggert said. “I mean, we’re a group of neighborhood kids. What are you going to do? The challenge is, in a sport where a few players make a difference, it’s just tough. I’m proud of the heart they played with. I think that we’ll continue to improve as we go, but anytime you go up against any of the private schools, the big ones, you’re up for a hard ride. It’s just the reality of it.”

Still, Benet didn’t take Glenbard South lightly.

“We didn’t really know what to expect of them,” Caniglia said. “We’ve never played Glenbard South, so we just wanted to come out hard, put them away early and make sure they didn’t have a chance to come back.”

“This could be a trap game too,” Gros added. “They all of a sudden get a counter, put one in. We take the day off a little bit, you’ve seen those situations. They had enough there that they might have done it. As soon as we got up on them 3 or 4 goals, they were worn out because even in the first half I played six or seven more people. So we’re deep enough with the talent to take a team like that and just run them to death.”

Benet’s depth and talent helped take Glenbard South out of its game.

“It was a little bit tough to see us not have the composure to play through feet,” Eggert said. “We were getting too direct once we had a little success with our players up top. ... You’re just not going to get by with that against quality. You’ve got to work the ball up through the midfield playing feet. We really dropped out of what we do when we’re at our best.”

Article Comments
Guidelines: Keep it civil and on topic; no profanity, vulgarity, slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked. If a comment violates these standards or our terms of service, click the "flag" link in the lower-right corner of the comment box. To find our more, read our FAQ.