Better offense keeps LZ rolling ahead
If you haven’t taken notice of Lake Zurich lately, you might want to take a second look.
Lake Zurich’s girls soccer team has sharpened its offensive focus of late, and it’s working as the Bears have won five of their last six.
The Bears shut out visiting Mundelein 2-0 in a North Suburban Lake Division match in Lake Zurich on Tuesday night.
“We found our offense, and our defense is playing tough,” said Lake Zurich coach Mike Castronova, whose team improved to 6-3 overall and 2-0 in the NSC Lake.
“We’re finishing our chances and talking about our offensive runs. We’re playing our feet and we’re able to finish. We’ve been on a roll.”
The Bears earned a 5-2 victory over Glenbrook South last Tuesday, and they had 3 second-half goals Saturday in a 4-2 win over Plainfield East.
“These girls go 80 minutes,” Castronova said. “They go the whole game and are not satisfied with anything less.”
Lake Zurich got its goals on Tuesday from Katie Williams and Vanesa Abad; Morgan Dakarian and Katie McCullough each had assists.
“I have been scoring goals, but its been the rest of the team that’s been setting me up,” said Abad, who now has 10 goals. “We’ve been waiting, and we have such good talent. It’s been taking some time to get used to each other, because the team is so brand new. We just want to play our best.”
Bears keeper Eleanor Daleske earned her third clean sheet with 4 stops. She had plenty of help from LZ’s defenders, including Catalina Abad, Maisie Cox, Stacey Wilton, Courtney Kehrmann and McCullough.
Mundelein dropped to 2-8-2 and 0-2-1 in the Lake. The Mustangs had chances to score — one shot hit the corner of the bar in the second half — and they had the better of the action for the final 40 minutes.
“We made the necessary adjustments at halftime,” Mundelein coach Ernie Billittier said. “Our girls played a real motivated second half.
“Once these girls start believing how good they can be ... When they are motivated, they can play with urgency and poise. We do have the ability to be a good team.”