Unbowed, Barrington shuts out St. Viator
Barrington put its injuries woes aside to claim a 2-0 victory against St. Viator on Thursday night in the Fillies’ group stage opener of the Naperville Invite played at Barrington.
Following at tightly played first half, Megan Fox stunned Lions when she thumped home her header from in close to finish a corner by Samantha Frank. Ellie Ackermann struck at 48 minutes to help the Fillies (9-3-0) prevail.
“Our win last night against Elk Grove was real emotional for all of us after watching Mia (Calamari) getting injured, and then finding out she had broken her ankle,” said Barrington senior Abby Taplett. “But I thought the team came back tonight and responded with some really good soccer for most of the game.”
Taplett, Emily Morin and the Barrington defenders kept scoring chances for the Lions (7-3-1) to a minimum.
“Right now we’re going through another stretch of injuries, and we’re hoping to get everyone back in another two weeks or so,” said St. Viator coach Mike Taylor. “Tonight we played a Barrington team that has a lot of depth, has a good idea of what to do, and plays the game physically. I thought we gave them a good game, even though we made two bad mistakes which cost us both times.”
The Lions were without starting midfielder Molly McMahon due to injury, and they recently lost junior Erin Renee Murphy to a strained MCL.
St. Viator, tied with both Carmel and Nazareth for the top spot in the East Suburban Catholic Conference, seemed committed to finding striker Chloe Luthringshausen as often as possible. But the junior was reduced to trying her luck from a distance or getting to the end line, where her crosses were met by a well-organized Fillies back line. They regularly cleared and jump-started the Barrington attack by finding Sara Condon in the middle or Ackermann and her running mate, Molly Pfeiffer, up top.
“We tried to get some things going, but Barrington’s defense was physical and quick to the ball, and we had some trouble getting in on them,” said Luthringshausen.
Barrington slowly started to get more possession as the first half went on. The Fillies’ top player, Pfeiffer, was in the center of most of what was going on and helped her teammates get a couple of chances at Lions keeper Morgan Hess, who met the challenge.
It appeared the match would go into intermission goal-less when a serve from Frank resulted in Fox running freely to a loose ball just a few seconds from the end of the first half.
“You just cannot allow a goal with 30-plus seconds to go in the half,” said Taylor.
“That was a big goal for us, no doubt, and so was Ellie’s just after the break,” said Barrington coach Ryan Stengren. “She and Molly were very good for us up top when they were in togethter, and the rest of the team really stepped up, especially in the middle with Mia out for the season.”
Calamari will have surgery today on her ankle.
On Barrington’s second goal, Ackermann and freshman Jenna Szczesny got on a run together, with the Szczesny providing a marvelous cross to find Ackermann on the tail-end of her run up for a goal past a diving Hess.
“Jenna did all the work, and just gave me a great ball,” said Ackermann, who helped keep the pressure on the Lions backline by running hard.
Stengren rested many of his starters in the second period, including Pfeiffer for the entire half, while the Lions looked to respond to the Fillies’ second goal.
Katie Gavin began to get forward with each Lions possession, and the St. Viator duo of Katelyn Hammarlund and Katherine Petrovich got more involved to help keep the ball in the Barrington end.
Gavin had a couple of long-range free kicks at keeper Hannah Luedtke, but the freshmen wasn’t but under much duress in the second half.
“I was real happy with the effort from everyone tonight, and I was happy to get everyone in to get some minutes and to give a few players some much-deserved rest,” said Stengren, whose club plays Evanston at noon Saturday.
St. Viator continues group play in the tournament at 7 p.m. tonight against Evanston.