South Elgin blanks Larkin

No Jourdan Valkner. No Delaney Kelleher.

No problem for the South Elgin girls soccer team.

The Storm used 5 first-half goals Wednesday, including 4 in the first 20 minutes, to defeat Larkin 8-0 in a Class 3A regional semifinal at Streamwood's Millennium Field.

In the process, the team may well have reversed an at-times frustrating campaign, as it ended a 10-game winless streak and improved to 9-10-2.

Best of all? The Storm did it without two of its top playmakers, and leaders - senior goalkeeper Valkner and senior midfielder/forward Kelleher, both out of commission due to injury. Instead, sophomore Ella Struwing contributed a hat trick and fellow soph Gracie Franks added a pair of goals of her own in a game that saw South Elgin outshoot the Royals 18-2.

The Storm advanced to play Streamwood at home in the regional final at 4:30 p.m. Friday, enhancing the possibility of a trip to sectionals.

"Sometimes it takes us awhile to score, and it makes us nervous because whenever we don't score, we start to get in that panic mode," said a beaming South Elgin coach Tiffany Disher. "So I think the fact that they were able to put one in early, then they were able to continue with the scoring, that gave them more confidence.

"We're definitely pleased with the outcome, because we've been on a 10-game winless streak, so to come out and get a win when we're starting our season over is nice. Now we're 1-0 on this season."

It only took 3 minutes for South Elgin to assert itself offensively Wednesday. Junior defender Sydney Shephard, stationed at the top of the Larkin 18-yard box, dropped a ball right in front of Franks as she darted in from the right side, who popped it into the right corner of the net.

Eight minutes later, Struwing got into the action. Shephard, coming down the left sideline, fired a pass to junior Corinne Hildebrandt who was trailing her. Hildebrandt subsequently fired a shot that deflected off Larkin sophomore goalkeeper Haley Casebeer - right to Struwing, who buried it into the left corner.

Hard to believe, but South Elgin was just getting started. Struwing lit up the scoreboard again in the 20th minute, snagging a Hildebrandt free kick and blasting it into the center of the net.

Seconds later, sophomore forward Citlali Sanchez scored on a 30-yard shot that squirted through Casebeer's hands into the center of the net.

Franks tallied for the second time in the 32nd minute, taking a rebound off a corner kick from teammate Alena Ignatev, giving the Storm a near-insurmountable 5-0 advantage.

That made the second half basically academic, though Hildebrandt scored a goal in the 57th minute, and Struwing added another in the 59th that per IHSA rules cut the time remaining in half, from 20 minutes to 10.

"I think that today was just more of a positive atmosphere," Struwing said. "We had a good team talk before, and we were more like, this is going to be the start of a new season, we wanted to come in strong like we did at the beginning of the season, and we all came in ready to go, more motivated."

Across the field, Larkin saw its best season since 2007 end with a thump. The Royals concluded their 2015 campaign with an 11-11-1 mark.

Though the loss put a damper on what had been a terrific campaign, Larkin coach Ken Hall preferred to take the long view.

"For us, it's a learning experience," Hall said. "We made progress this year, we made strides this year. At this point in time and in our progress as a program, South Elgin is better than us. I think nerves played a big part for us today.

"I hope we take this as a learning process of where we have to be in order to win a playoff game."