Conant completes St. Charles sweep
Conventional wisdom was that St. Charles East or St. Charles North were the strongest teams in the Class 3A Schaumburg sectional, and Conant had the chance to play spoiler.
Even Conant coach Jason Franco didn't dispute that the St. Charles teams were strong, but he had plans of his own for the sectional, which had as its reward a trip to a supersectional match on the Cougars' home field.
"As (Franco) said, we just wanted to ruin the St. Charles party," Conant's Emily Mazurek said. "Everyone thought they were going to be playing in this game. We proved everyone wrong."
In Saturday's sectional title match and three days after eliminating St. Charles East, Conant got goals from Mazurek and Leah Celarek, then withstood a furious St. Charles North fightback and won 2-1 to earn that homefield match on Tuesday. The Cougars face defending state champion New Trier at 6 p.m.
"We knew both St. Charles teams are fantastic teams," Franco said. "We knew we were going to have to play our best soccer in order to win. Maybe not pretty soccer, but we needed to play our best, effective soccer to have a chance."
St. Charles North (20-3-2) entered the match on a 16-match unbeaten run in which they were 15-0-1. The North Stars hit their offensive stride late in the match, but were unable to force overtime.
"I don't think we played great," North Stars coach Ruth Vostal said. "We played great for 20 minutes in the second half. You look at how we've played the last however many games, and we've been playing phenomenally. We just did not play well today, and you can't show up against a good team and not play great."
Played in a steady rainfall and with a strong wind affecting play, neither team ever found much passing rhythm. Early chances went to St. Charles North. First a three-player passing move moved through Gia Wahlberg and Lizzie Parrilli before Morgan Rerko shot wide. Moments later, Amanda Czerniak shot wide.
In the 18th minute of play, the Cougars were awarded a corner kick, which Celarek took. The North Stars cleared the initial danger, but the ball returned to Celarek in the right corner, and she sent the ball low into the North Stars penalty area and Mazurek finished with a one-time shot.
"We knew if we were going to come out and play in this terrible weather, we wanted to make the most of it," Mazurek said. "Even if we lost, we wanted to know that we played our best. I'm ecstatic now to go on and play another game with this great team on our home field."
Neither team generated many chances the rest of the half. Needing an offensive push, St. Charles North was frequently stymied by the Cougars' defense. And while she scored a goal and had an assist, some of Celarek's strongest moments came in holding the ball in midfield to build some momentum.
The lack of offensive chances hurt the North Stars seven minutes into the second half when Celarek hit a shot from the top of the penalty area that moved in midair from left-to-right and went into the goal near the right post.
"We've had a very up-and-down season," Celarek said. "In a way, it's crazy just to be here. But to win sectionals is a great feeling. When this team gels, we play well and we play with heart and we fight the best as we can. I have a really great group of teammates behind me and they played incredible today."
St. Charles North's offense hit high gear at that point, and Wahlberg had a shot saved by Conant keeper Haley Anderson. Wahlberg ultimately got her team on the scoreboard with 22 minutes to play when the freshman took a sharp Hailey Rydberg cross and hit a one-time shot into the net.
"We scored and we created some chances but we didn't finish," Vostal said. "(Conant) was tight defensively, and the ball was in the air a lot, and we couldn't get it back to our style, on the ground and pass-and-move. We had a couple moments like that, but not enough to get in behind their back line."
Each team had a strong chance to score in the final quarter-hour of play. Mazurek hit a long shot that was saved by North Stars keeper Shelby Stitz and Parrilli saw a shot saved by Anderson.
"Our second goal was big because we knew that at some point, we were going to get that St. Charles North push against us, and they gave it to us," Franco said.
Saturday's match brings Vostal's coaching career to a close, having announced this season would be her last late in the regular season. The only coach the North Stars have had, Vostal took the North Stars to the state finals three times, including runner-up finishes in 2004 and 2012.
"It's hard, when you look at this group of players, and I thought they played hard the last 20 minutes," Vostal said. "That's the team we've been coaching all these years, and we'll hang onto that, not the unfortunate goals that went in. They fought and they did everything they could to tie it up at the end, and I thought they were going to."