A draw ... and a rematch for Barrington, Hersey
A perfect storm nearly sunk Barrington's hopes of a trip to the Soccer Cup.
The Fillies, who were without three starters, needed to overcome that loss, a terrific opponent and enough weather delays to fill an entire season of outdoor sports to earn a 1-1 draw against Hersey.
That deadlock enabled the Fillies to clinch a spot in Wednesday's Mid-Suburban League Cup against the Huskies (11-3-5), who last week captured their third straight East Division crown.
The Fillies (19-2-3), who will host the championship match, won the West Division title over Schaumburg by virtue of tie-breaker criteria. The teams both finished with 19 regular-season points, but the Saxons lost a 2-0 division match to Conant.
"With all that was going on (today), I have to admit that I was beginning to think it would be the weather and not Hersey that would end our chances to get to the Soccer Cup," said Fillies coach Ryan Stengren, who might have failed a stress test after the two clubs heard the "Thor Guard" alarm go off once before the match began and five other times because the system detected lightning in the area.
The match eventually ended nearly four hours after the scheduled 4 p.m. start.
"Each side showed a little of their hand today, but I tell you it will be a different look for both of us on Wednesday," said Huskies coach Brad Abel, whose club put a scare into the Fillies faithful by holding a 1-0 lead well after intermission until Barrington's Molly Pfeiffer struck the equalizer.
"We were happy to win another divisional title, but it's all about winning the conference championship next week, and that has been our focus all season long," said both Kathryn Korff and Julia Fredian of Hersey.
Korff once again was part of an air-tight back line which kept goalkeeper Fredian protected for most of the 100 minutes played.
Fredian stopped Aimee Pierce on what appeared to be a sure goal just after intermission. Later Fredian made a brilliant save off a cracker from Caroline Condon, but the opportunistic Pfeiffer converted the rebound for her seventh goal of the season, of which 5 are game-winning goals.
"Molly had 4 game-winners at the Pepsi (Showdown), her last coming in the championship match (with Glenbrook South) - and today's goal is really a game-winner for us as well," said Stengren, who was without leading scorer Emily Hyde and his central midfielders Sara Fox (hip flexor) and Catie Curran, who is lost for the season with an ACL knee injury.
"We had to really invent ourselves with those three girls missing and the weather, and I guess our depth was really tested today."
The Huskies dominated the early exchanges after play resumed just 43 seconds into the match, and it wasn't long until Maeva Waterman found the back of the net when the Huskies' top scorer ran onto a well-aimed serve off the corner from Andrea Perkins.
"We've been so poor at the start of our last five-six matches, and we couldn't get anything going at all until Caroline made that big play for us," said the Fillies' Amy Johnson, who was moved into the middle at the half-hour with the hope of energizing the attack.
The Fillies showed little spark against the Huskies until Pfeiffer's goal.
"It's hard to explain why we came out so flat, because we all knew what was at stake and what we needed to do to get into the MSL Cup," said Condon.
A pair of 10-minute overtimes ended scoreless, setting up Wednesday's rematch for MSL glory.
"This is a great soccer conference, especially when you consider that Schaumburg, Fremd, Conant and Elk Grove were unable to advance into the championship match," Abel said.