Strom, Falcons hit from distance to beat Tigers
Wheaton North senior defender Erin Strom spends time at practice every day firing shots from 30 and 40 yards out, just in case she's needed for a free kick.
In Tuesday's 2-1 win over cross-town rival Wheaton Warrenville South, Strom's work paid off.
Down 1-0 at the half in the DuPage Valley Conference opener for both teams, Strom fired two free kicks of 40 yards out over Tigers goalkeeper Katlyn Barnes to provide the difference for the Falcons (4-1, 1-0). Strom now leads the team with 6 goals, half of which came on free kicks.
"I practice that shot all the time and I just aim for the back netting," Strom said. "Basically, it's just practice makes perfect, you know. The farther the kick, the more I put on it. It's kind of hard to explain what's going through your mind. Basically, this is your chance to do everything you've got to help your team."
Wheaton Warrenville South (1-1, 0-1) dictated the pace in the first half and the first 10 minutes of the second half. The Tigers got on the board with 22:34 left in the first half when Alli Bellmer poked in a Sarah Langlas throw-in to make it 1-0.
But Strom evened it up with 28:25 left in the second with the first of her 40-yard stunners. Lined up straight in front of the goal, the left-footer snuck it just under the crossbar to suddenly tie the game.
"The first shot was brilliant and nobody would have saved it," Wheaton North coach Tim McEvilly said. "I would have told her not to do it again because odds are the goalie would be cheating so we could find something on the far post. Thankfully, I didn't say anything and she went at it and hit it again."
That happened less than eight minutes later, with 20:51 left, when Strom uncorked a carbon-copy shot that gave the Falcons the decisive goal.
"They were both well-struck and in this wind, sometimes those high balls can be difficult," Wheaton Warrenville South coach Guy Callipari said. "I think in this game when you put the ball at the face of the goal and you put it at the crossbar, at this level, it always causes some concern for the defense. Good things can happen when you put the ball in the vital area and give chance and opportunity, and that's what they did both times."
Even though the Falcons did not score any goals in the flow of the game, they did make adjustments at halftime that helped them put 5 shots on goal and slow down the Tigers while hanging onto the lead.
"Second half, we talked about calming down," McEvilly said. "We're an organized team defensively and we can defend against anybody. But we also played a better pace of a game. We played the ball wide and slowed things down so that we could get more numbers forward and that allowed us to control the pace in the second half. In the first half they controlled the pace."