Girls soccer: DeKalb finds way to beat Glenbard South
The Glenbard South defense had been stellar through the first four matches of the 2018 girls soccer season.
That Raiders back line was up to the task again on Saturday, though a bit of a freak goal in the early stages of the contest proved to be the difference in the 1-0 loss to DeKalb in Glen Ellyn.
Led by DePaul-bound center back Sarah Cohen and goalkeeper Emily Villasenor, Glenbard South (1-2-2) has yielded just three goals thus far.
"Our defense has been fantastic," Glenbard South coach Kevin Berner, whose team has posted a 1-0 win over Lake Park and scoreless ties against West Chicago and Hinsdale South. "We have a lot of leadership back there with Sarah and Danielle Palmieri and they are trusting each other. We've had three shutouts on the season and they played well enough to shutout DeKalb here."
The main issue for the Raiders has been on offense, though Berner expects that to turn around in the near future. The home team's best chances to score against the Barbs were on a pair of second-half free kicks by Abby Showalter, one of which just went over the crossbar and the other that was saved by visiting goalie Allison Yohanan. Glenbard South also dealt with depth issues on Saturday with three players absent and a fourth injured.
"Erin (Haslett) and Sam (Schutte) are going to get it going," Berner said. "Those two up top are valuable weapons; they were our two leading scorers from last year. They will get their points, they will get their goals and assists. It's just a matter of more training."
As for DeKalb, the Barbs continued their strong start to the season despite not playing their best soccer. The visitors improved to 5-2 on the spring thanks to a goal by Olivia Olson less than three minutes into the first half.
On that play a cross that was knocked down by the wind eluded Villasenor and Olson controlled the ball and deposited it into an empty net.
"It's a big accomplishment for this group," DeKalb coach P.J. Hamilton said, "that when we didn't play our best soccer, we were still able to get the result. We didn't play our best soccer, but we still had enough positive moments in the match to get the win. There has been some years where we haven't gotten those (positive) results when we didn't play our best brand."
The Barbs' defense was equally impressive, with Emma Rourke, Lindsy Franzene and Darian Lucas denying any major scoring chances in front of Yohanan. Midfielders Haley Brown and Siobhan Gallagher also helped out.
"I don't think we played our best but we are still happy to come out with the win," Rourke said. "I think we have really good chemistry and our communication really helps with knowing where we need to be in our positioning. We are feeling pretty good, we have been playing well together."