Fremd finds its offense at Wheeling
In an up and down season, Fremd’s girls soccer team was way, way up Wednesday night.
The Vikings (4-5-1 overall, 3-4-1 Mid-Suburban League) exploded for 7 second-half goals, including 4 in a nine-minute span, in a 7-0 victory at Wheeling.
Bekah Bostrom and freshman Katie Zara had a hand in two of the visitors’ goals, while senior Rebecca Freeman scored twice to help the Vikings to their best scoring effort of the season. Coach Steve Keller’s team had found the back of the net on just 10 occasions prior to Wednesday evening, a statistic not lost on the veteran Vikes leader.
“We just haven’t finished this season, and after another poor effort (attacking) in the first half, we asked the girls to be aggressive, take on people — to shoot the ball, and be a little selfish when they get in close. They finally did some of that in the second half, and you saw the result.”
The Vikings, who are about to begin their most difficult stretch of the season beginning Friday with pool play of the prestigious Naperville Invite versus Naperville Central, showed little signs of life in the opening period against a Wheeling (1-9-0, 0-7-0) side which was without one of its top players, captain Cindy Castillo, stressing the already thin roster of coach Darren Llewellyn.
“Not having (Cindy) in the middle for us is not a good thing for a lot of reasons, but we battled hard for the first 40 minutes, and achieved our goal of not allowing a first-half goal against an MSL team,” said Llewellyn. “But we just couldn’t hold them off after the break.”
It was one-way traffic in the early going for the Vikings, who stayed in the Wheeling end for most of the first half-hour but still lacked the bite in the final.
Fremd junior Jessa Rizzo contributed at least four quality serves off of corners her mates created, and she also sent Zara through on the left side in the 14th minute. That sequence looked to be leading to the opening goal of the match when the rookie striker drew keeper Elizabeth McDaniel off her line, but the shot went just wide.
McDaniel took the ball off the boot of Zara moments later as the Vikings continued their search to score. Shortly after, a drive from Kira Heggeland went over the bar.
“We really should have had a goal or two before the break, and (Keller) reminded us of that during the half,” said Rizzo. “He let us all know that we had to play a lot better in the second half.”
Llewellyn’s girls enjoyed a brief spell of success going forward as they nearly grabbed the lead in the 26th minute when the Cats’ terrific strike force of Gina Mazetta and Alex Laureano connected, putting the Laureano, a freshman, in on Vikings keeper Rachel Tenuta.
When Tenuta raced far off her line to challenge, Laureano leapt over the sprawling keeper and in the process struck the junior in the head with her trailing foot.
Tenuta needed attention after the collision and was up under her own power after a short delay but did return to action, giving way to Shannon Norris.
Heggeland finally got the Vikings going at 48 minutes when she followed up a rebound. After that, the floodgates opened at about the same time a light drizzle began.
Bostrom doubled the lead at 52 minutes, then Freeman fired in the third goal of the period at 58 minutes. Quick ball movement by Bostrom and Rizzo made it easy for Zara to finish in the 60th minute, sending many of the Vikings’ starters to the bench for good.
Freeman, Jessa Corso and Brielle Bailey added three more gaols in the final 10 minutes, and Norris shared credit for the Vikings’ fourth shutout of the season with her injured teammate Tenuta.
“If we keep working and training hard, we can be one of those teams nobody will want to play later on in the season, but we’ve got to continue to improve as a team in order to do so,” said Rizzo.
“We had that one great chance to go up in the first half, and maybe it changes the way (Fremd) plays — or maybe it doesn’t,” said Llewellyn. “We stayed in it for awhile, but when it became 3-0, we just wore down from there on out.”