Streamwood bounces back to beat Elgin

Streamwood girls soccer coach Matt Polovin has no problem criticizing his team vocally for a poor play or a bad mistake.

But as senior forward Tawny Carroll alluded to in the Sabres' 2-1 Upstate Eight River win over Elgin Tuesday at Memorial Field in Upstate Eight River action, whenever her team receives Polovin's "OMG face" instead, you're in big, big trouble.

And that's what the Sabres got after Elgin sophomore Trisha Quintana headed home a corner from freshman Brittany Dazzo for an early 1-0 Maroons lead in the 14th minute.

"We all stood and watched and one girl jumped up and it happened to be the only person from Elgin," Polovin said. "I think the girls knew it was unacceptable at this point in the season. No one challenged for a ball to get it out."

And as Carroll said: "Whenever things tend to happen like that I look to (Polovin) on the side and see what face or reaction he makes and whenever I see that 'omg' face I'm like, 'I got to pick it up right now.' "

Carroll needed less than 30 seconds - 28 to be exact - to take the ball down the right sideline and tie the game on a shot off her left foot that tucked inside the right post. Alondra Blanco sealed the deal with her goal late in the 72nd minute for the win, as Streamwood (8-9, 1-5) responded well to Elgin's first punch and its coach's look of perplexity in a prelude to the teams' IHSA Class 4A regional semifinal matchup in two weeks at Millennium Field in Streamwood.

"I was like I got to score, it's against Elgin, we just got off a bad loss to Larkin," Carroll said. "So I really wanted to prove ourselves this round especially since we'll play them later. I had to get the goal and I got it."

"It shows why she's one of the top forwards around," Polovin said. "She knew we were down and she took it upon herself to do what it took to get the ball right back."

Carroll also earned an assist on Blanco's goal, as the sophomore benefited from a breakdown in miscommunication on the Maroons' defensive side with 7:08 left on the clock.

"It went really quickly, it went over the last defender," Blanco said of Carroll's pass, in which Maroons goalie Hannah Demel went out to challenge but initially hesitated at.

"I just stuck my foot in the middle through the gap and it just went in."

It took Streamwood nearly 57 minutes, 11 shots and passes up and over the top to finally break through an Elgin (6-9-3, 0-4-2) defense that had a different strategy, according to Maroons' coach Alicia Knoll.

"We were actually trying something totally different on defense, we wanted to see how that would work and try to shut down some of their main scorers," Knoll said. "It didn't hurt and we could take that and change it if need be in two weeks."

Elgin was outshot 15-8 and allowed 5 corner kicks. But besides the error in the second half, the Maroons by no means were out of this one at all.

"I can't complain about how they played," Knoll said. "(We) played really strong and they were finding each other's feet passing wise. I can't complain about how hard they played."