Another scoreless tie for Hersey, Glenbrook South
Two hundred minutes of soccer; no goals.
That's the result when Hersey and Glenbrook South have met in girls soccer over the past two seasons.
Last year, the teams got together in a sectional semifinal, and after a goal-less 120 minutes, Glenbrook South prevailed with an exciting PK shootout victory.
Tuesday evening, it was more of the same in the opening match for both clubs in the Pepsi Showdown Tournament - only on this frigid night, the match ended in a 0-0 draw in regulation.
"Hersey is just a well-coached, hard-working athletic team that just finds a way to keep you out of the back of its net," said Glenbrook South coach Seong Ha, whose club was idle nearly two weeks before hosting the Huskies (3-1-4) in Glenview last night.
Ha watched his Titans (1-1-2) open with a nearly perfect start led by all-state striker and Illinois-bound Jannelle Flaws, who with a brilliant individual performance nearly finished on a pair of close-range strikes, only to see both miss ever-so-closely.
"(That) is a very good team," said Hersey coach Brad Abel, who liked so many others dressed for the unusually warm spring night only to be shocked moments before the match began with a 25-degree temperature drop. "GBS has a lot of skilled players, and it didn't look too good for us in the first 10-15 minutes, but we prevailed and, although we defended for most of the match, still played well enough to get the draw."
The Titans began the match with three strikers up top, most notably Flaws, who finished the 2009 season with a school record 38 goals to give her 102 in her career.
With the senior causing trouble constantly in the Huskies' end, and her midfield mates, particularly Kelly Brait winning most first and second balls, the defending Mid-Suburban East champs were forced to defend far more than they would have liked.
"We had to kind of play with a sweeper-stopper (formation) and hold the weakside and pinch in the middle to slow them down, but it didn't really work until the second half," said Abel.
Flaws dinged the far post with an attempt from the near touchline, then rattled the woodwork from close range to cap a solid quarter hour of soccer from the hosts.
The intense pressure increased the need for the Huskies' top midfielder, Andrea Perkins, to drop and defend more often, which in turn stymied the hope of finding leading scorer Maeva Waterman on a regular basis.
"Waterman is such a dangerous player, and we were aware of what she could do after watching her last year at the sectionals," said Ha.
After the break, the Hersey backline of Megan Boyle, Eileen Zydek, Nicole Pietro and Kathryn Korff began to assert themselves, with Korff earning plenty of praise from the Glenbrook South coach, and Pietro from Abel after the fine job the sophomore did of neutralizing Flaws for the next 40 minutes.
"(Flaws) wasn't nearly as dangerous in the second half thanks to (Pietro), and it's one of the reasons that we get forward a little bit more and created a few opportunities in the GBS end."
All-area keeper Julie Fredian made a goal-saving reaction stop in close on Flaws at 52 minutes to keep it at 0-0. The best chance for Hersey came when a loose ball turned into a opportunity for an onrushing Alexa Ruzkowski, who was denied when keeper Kelsey Byers challenged off her line just outside the box at 73 minutes.