Waubonsie Valley comeback stuns Barrington

Admittedly, staring at a 2-goal deficit in the second half against a strong Barrington girls soccer team is cause for concern, but for Waubonsie Valley it certainly is no reason to throw in the towel.

The Warriors scored three goals in rapid succession for a 4-3 nonconference victory Monday in Aurora.

After the Fillies' Sophia Spinell knocked a low shot past Warrior goalkeeper Sarah Young to make the score 3-1 with 17:49 left to play, the home team was in need of a spark. It didn't help matters that Waubonsie Valley's Sarah Griffith, who had scored the game's first goal in the first half, was out of the game with sore calves.

But Sam Stricker scored following a free kick by Carolena Lund with 13:35 to play to make it a 3-2 game. Then the Warriors followed with another quick goal and then another. By the time Jordan Masiak had given the Warriors a 4-3 lead with 10:18 left to play, Waubonsie Valley had scored 3 goals in less than 3½ minutes to stun the Fillies (1-1-1).

"We felt good about our first half," said Masiak, whose first goal of the season was a game-winner. "We got unlucky on the corner. Then we were frustrated because we kept giving them corners and fouls in the second half. We were down 3-1 and you could kind of see our heads go down but we still played through."

That they did. After Stricker started the comeback, Griffith returned to the field and tied the game on a free kick that she blasted through the Barrington wall with 12:30 left. Two minutes later Masiak blasted a 25-yard shot into the upper left corner to make it 4-3.

"We got one goal back and we got momentum and we just kept going," Masiak, a senior, said. "I just got the ball on the outside, I just took the touch across my body and hit it well. Their center backs were kind of slow to pressure and I saw an opening and hit it off my foot."

Griffith, who was helped off the field twice Monday with calve problems, managed to finish the game and score two big goals. Her first score came after she stole the ball and quickly rifled a shot past Fillies keeper Annika Lutz to make the score 1-0 10 minutes into the game. Then she tied the score at 3-3 off the restart and that set the stage for the big comeback win.

"When you go down like that all you can do is play as hard as you can and just try and get everything on that you can," Griffith said. "Once you get that first one in you know right away to just keep working and going.

"That's a very good team. It's awesome, like the best feeling when coming back like that. All your hard work is on the field and you just leave it on the field."

For Barrington, Kayla Keck scored the first of her two goals to tie the score 1-1 at the half. It came off a corner kick and a scramble in front of the Warriors net. She then headed home a perfect corner kick ball off the foot of Anna Brodjian to give the Fillies a 2-1 lead just more than 10 minutes into the second half.

When the lead reached 3-1, things were looking good for a Barrington team not accustomed to allowing many goals.

"It turned in a hurry," Barrington coach Ryan Stengren said. "It was not very good. It needs to be a lot better if we want to take ourselves seriously. Give them credit, they scored 3 goals in less than five minutes.

"I don't think that's happened in the nine years that I've been the varsity coach."

Stengren also couldn't recall ever allowing 4 goals in a single game.