Wheaton Academy headed back to state

Wheaton Academy won the Class A state girls soccer championship in the old two-class system, in 2004.

A handful of years later, the Warriors are in search of another state title, this time in Class 2A after getting past Lakes 4-0 in the Barrington supersectional Tuesday evening.

Wheaton Academy (20-3-2) plays Sycamore in the state semifinals at 11 a.m. Friday at North Central College in Naperville. Sycamore blanked Peoria Notre Dame 5-0 in the other quarterfinal game at the Rochelle supersectional.

Lexi Sharkey scored a pair of goals, giving her 16 on the season. Her sister, Sydney, had 1 goal, and Ally Witt knocked in the other Warriors goal.

"It's a good win for us," Wheaton Academy coach Scott Marksberry said. "We possessed better this game than we've done most of the season. Objectively, it really took us out of our game in the first half. We did get more aggressive in the second half.

"Lakes did have a lot of people behind the ball. Lakes really smothered us. If we took more than a touch, they were there. Lakes did a great job doing that."

The Warriors got on the board 10 minutes into the contest as Witt took the ball off a Lakes defender, leading to a 1-on-1 with Lakes keeper Ashley Downing to make it 1-0.

"I got the ball off the deflection and poked it through," said Witt, who scored inside the near post. "It's common to go far, but I thought (keeper) would dive far, so I went for the near side. It worked."

Lexi Sharkey got the second Wheaton Academy tally three minutes into the second half with an assist from Leah Fortune.

Sharkey struck again nine minutes later on a rebound of her first shot, which deflected off an Eagles defender. Sydney Sharkey added a goal in the 76th minute with an assist from Witt.

"We knew what we were up against," said Lakes sweeper Alyssa Baker. "We knew there were a couple of strong girls with good skills. We put our best defenders on them and hoped to come out with a good effort.

"We held them off for a little bit, but some misplays got the best of us."

Warriors keeper Emily Mulder made 4 stops to earn the shutout.

Lakes (16-8-1) made school history with its first supersectional appearance but quickly found out just how solid Wheaton Academy was.

"By the first 10 minutes we realized, Wheaton Academy was a real good team," Lakes coach Kevin Kullby said. "We knew we were going to struggle. We did hold up well for as long as we could. That's all we could ask for.

"Wheaton Academy did their best to break us down, getting second and third chances on goal. At some point you're going to buckle under."