Girls soccer: IC Catholic falls to Aurora Central
Aurora Central Catholic had the first word and the last word.
Senior Gina Cortino scored on the first shot of the game and sophomore Mary Canning did likewise on the last shot as the visiting Chargers pulled off a historic 3-2 upset of IC Catholic Prep on Monday night at Plunkett Park in Elmhurst.
"I don't think we've ever beat them, so that was a huge win," ACC coach Kristy Kane said. "We tend to have difficulty with them. We've lost to them by more than we should have in the recent past, so this is huge for us."
The host Knights (9-5, 2-3 Metro Suburban Blue) came into the game with a 5-0 record at home and controlled the majority of the run of play yet never led.
The Chargers (7-3-2, 2-2) scored twice on counterattacks in the second half, the first on a breakaway by Shannon LoPresti to break a 1-1 tie with 32:20 remaining and the second on Canning's goal, which came with 43 seconds left.
LoPresti stole an outlet pass and worked a give-and-go on the left wing before sending a pass to Canning, whose high-arcing one-timer from the top of the circle sailed over IC goalie Gabby Smola and under the crossbar.
"They were just kind of wheeling back and forth and I was like, 'Oh, it's coming to me,'" Canning said. "I was just like, 'I need to do something with this.'
"I didn't even see where (the shot) was going to go, but it went over (Smola's) head."
ACC won despite being outshot 14-9. The Chargers were back on their heels for most of the second half.
Senior Tessa Langan scored 2 game-tying goals for IC, including a rocket from a severe angle along the right end line to make it 2-2 with 9:38 left in the second half.
But it wasn't enough as ACC goalie Alex Montalbano made 7 saves and got some help from her defense.
IC freshman Abi Wagner had two cracks at the go-ahead goal, but both were stopped at point-blank range with just over five minutes to go. Montalbano made a tremendous diving save on the first and fullback Meghan Johnson blocked the rebound off the line.
"It's a tough one, especially when you dominate play as much as you do," IC coach Tom Schergen said. "Their goalie came up with some big saves, some saves that normal high school goalies don't make. There were some balls that you think are goals and she came up big for them."
Schergen wasn't unhappy with his team's play, saying ACC earned the victory.
"ACC played hard, they scrapped, they did everything they needed to do to win the game and they caught us on a counter a couple times," Schergen said. "We pushed and they countered and it was a good strategy by them.
"I think our girls played with a lot of heart and a lot of effort too. We just didn't finish."