St. Francis grateful to Trinity for difficult sectional victory

St. Francis wanted to be tested at Wednesday's Class 2A Elmwood Park sectional semifinals.

The Spartans passed the test with a 2-0 girls soccer victory against Trinity, and they believe that will make them more prepared for Friday's sectional final against defending state champion and archrival Wheaton Academy, the sectional's top seed.

"When you play the first round of the sectionals, you want competition," Spartans coach Meghan Boler said. "As much as I want to win, I want to play and the girls want to play."

The second-seeded Spartans (15-8-1) did play, and they played well after a slow start. No. 3 Trinity had some good scoring chances but couldn't put them on goal. That eventually proved costly.

"That first couple of minutes, I was like, holy smokes," Boler said. "I was actually nervous. But then we stepped up."

The reason for the slow start, Boler said, was regional opponents who couldn't test the Spartans.

"I am very excited for Friday," Boler said. "Our girls are sweating, tired. Granted, we'll take it easy tomorrow, but Friday I am more than excited to go into that game."

"With this momentum going into Friday, I think we're going to give Wheaton Academy a run, give them a really hard challenge," sophomore Andi Matichak added.

In the 26th minute Matichak sent a long ball to the left corner to sophomore Sydney Fox, whose cross found freshman Sarah Rahman waiting at the far post to score her third goal of the season.

Nine minutes later Fox again served a cross from the left side, this one chipped over the goalkeeper and again to the far post where freshman Anna Vonderhaar was waiting to nod it into the net.

The Spartans played direct, trying to use their speed against the Trinity defense, which pushed up high in an offsides trap that caught the Spartans 13 times.

"I think that was a record in itself," said Boler, who diagrammed for her forwards how to foil the trap.

"It was a challenge, but we played as a team, we played really tough," Matichak said. "We did use our speed up top. They did get us offsides a lot, but we figured it out at the end, so that was good."