Girls soccer: Geneva shuts out West Chicago
Sophomore forward Stephanie Howe and the Geneva girls soccer team's high-powered offense can strike quickly.
On Tuesday Howe needed only 2:15 into the second half to collect her team-best sixth goal by completing a great passing combination with senior Maddy Rapach-Lagowski and freshman Alicia White.
"I think that just led to more later on in the half, so that was exciting," Howe said.
Less than two minutes later, the undefeated Vikings scored again and later added two more in a 5-0 victory at West Chicago.
Geneva (3-0) has already outscored opponents 21-0, but this time the Vikings only led 1-0 at halftime. Sophomore Jenna Dominguez converted after sophomore Sydney Gratz outhustled a defender to get her the ball.
"At that point we knew we weren't connecting as well as we wanted. We're weren't playing at top speed," Howe said. "We knew we had to pick up the pace and I think that we did a great job in doing that. It was a great team effort in the second half toward building more goals."
Dominguez and Gratz each scored twice with sophomore Caitlin Farrell assisting Gratz's first score. Goalies Emma Harkleroad and Katie Montgomery shared the shutout.
Besides Howe, Gratz now has 5 goals and 3 assists, Dominguez and White each have 3 goals and Farrell has 2 goals and 3 assists.
"It's been all around. It's not like it's been the same two people scoring all of the goals. We're really excited about that," Geneva coach Megan Owens said.
"Our first half was not as sharp and clean as we needed to be. I think we were a little bit distracted. We talked about that at halftime and second half we played our game for sure. The positive from that is that we can flip the switch and transition."
The tale of two halves was indicative of every game thus far for the young Wildcats (0-3). They have just three starting seniors - goalie Emma Gaggioli, outside midfielder Jasmine Mendoza and new sweeper Grace Pointer - and otherwise started three freshmen, two sophomores and three juniors.
On Monday coach J. Cesar Gomez also was pleased with the Wildcats' first 17 to 18 minutes in their 4-0 loss to Lemont at the Glenbard South Invitational.
"We have a small, very inexperienced team. We can possess, but we get frustrated really quick when people score on us," Gomez said.
"I thought we played well with (Geneva) the first half, but they're a good team so good teams adjust and they adjusted well. You can't win in a first-half effort against Geneva."
The Vikings look as if they have overcome graduating leading scorer Kyleigh Dominguez's 20 goals and four other key seniors from last year's sectional finalist.
There's experience defensively with returning starters Harkleroad, Leah Groven and Emily Hauser, all seniors, and junior Anneliese Lockner.
"I think we have high expectations. We definitely want to get at least back to where we were at - and one more (this season)," Hauser said.
"We definitely lost some people (on offense), but I was never worried. We're kind of a team that is more of a team effort rather than one stud player. I knew we'd be OK."