Geneva bonds, blanks Larkin
Amazing what a road trip can do for a team's psyche.
Take the Geneva girls soccer team, which hit the road last weekend for a two-game trip to St. Louis, where it went 0-1-1, including tying powerful O'Fallon.
But that wasn't the point. Hotels, dinners and even laser tag was on the itinerary, and it did plenty for team bonding.
That was evident in Geneva's first game since the trip, a 5-0 victory over Larkin on Monday evening.
The Vikings improved to 2-2-1 overall and 1-1 in the Upstate Eight River behind goals from four players, including two from freshman Lauren Albrecht.
"It's an annual trip and it's a tradition in our program," Geneva coach Megan Owens said of her squad's out-of-state junket. "We've gone on it the last seven years. It's about team bonding, it's about getting them together on a bus for five hours, sharing rooms, no parents, and just doing fun things.
"We're so young this year that we really did," she said. "Before the trip we were very much individuals, and we're now a much more cohesive unit, much more a team."
That much was clear Monday. The Vikings looked about as fluid, fast and together as a soccer team can be, outshooting Larkin 15-8, with 11 of those shots on goal.
They wasted no time getting on the board, peppering Larkin goalkeeper Bernice Gomez with three straight shots starting in the ninth minute before Albrecht took a pass from her senior sister, Megan, in a crowd and popped it into the center of the net in the 13th minute.
The Geneva faithful in the bleachers had barely settled in their seats when the Vikings struck again 2 minutes later. Senior Mary Landry got loose on a breakaway and fired a shot that Gomez deflected. Landry corralled the deflection and flicked the ball into the center of the center to put her team up 2-0.
Junior Allie Mikos joined the fun in the 34th minute when she grabbed a deflected shot from freshman teammate Maddie Stellick and once again found the center the net.
That gave Geneva a 3-0 lead heading into halftime, but do you think the Vikings were tempted to tap the brakes in the second half? Hardly.
In the 48th minute, junior Briar Schwardt unloaded a free kick from just inside the center point of the field which bounced loudly off the crossbar and was eventually cleared by Larkin.
But Schwardt was better 2 minutes later when she fired away on another free kick in front of her team's bench that dropped in front of Stellick on the left corner of the 18-yard box. Stellick calmly fired a shot that ended up in the right corner of the goal, past a diving Gomez.
Albrecht gave the Vikings more insurance with her second goal in the 74th minute.
Speed to the ball and a cohesive attack was a discussion point in St. Louis, Landry said.
"That was the whole goal of the trip - we wanted to get on the ball, get to it, always have pressure and always keep it in their half," she said.
It may have seemed like a tough night for Larkin, but it wasn't for a lack of effort. The Royals' best chance to score came in the 22nd minute, when senior defender Ana Leon fired a free kick that Geneva goalkeeper Emma Harkleroad barely got her hands on and deflected over the top of the crossbar.
And then there was Gomez, who had 10 saves, including 8 in the first half.
Still, Larkin coach Ken Hall sees his team as a work in progress.
"We've just got to clean it up," said Hall, whose team fell to 1-3-1 overall and 0-1-1 in conference. "Every time we make one mistake it seems we get punished for it. We competed a lot harder than we have in a long time; we have eight freshman and seven sophomores, so we're very, very young. It's growing pains.
"We competed with them, but we just have to clean up the little mistakes we're making that are costing us goals now. If we can clean those up, we'll get better results."