McCabe, Prospect keep Schaumburg stifled
It’s been a frustrating two weeks of girls soccer in the Mid-Suburban League for Schaumburg.
Figuring to be in the hunt in the MSL West along with Barrington and Conant, the Saxons’ attack headed south at the wrong time of the season. Schaumburg is suddenly finding it impossible to get into the back of the net, including Wednesday night at Gary Scholz Stadium.
The visiting Knights (6-5-3, 3-4-2-11) and standout keeper Megan McCabe kept the hosts scoreless for 100 minutes in a 0-0 draw to prolong the scoring draught for the Saxons (9-2-4, 3-2-3-11).
“Two hundred forty minutes without scoring is a long time,” said Schaumburg coach Greg Charvat, who said the result Wednesday wasn’t for lack of effort.
Charvat instead credited McCabe, who was superb.
“Right now it seems there’s this big barrier in front of whatever net we’re shooting at,” Charvat said. “Some of that is on our shoulders, and tonight, (McCabe) was very good to make it a little bit harder for us to score.”
“Megan is amazing ... she just so solid,” said Saxons midfielder Teagan Eberle, a teammate of McCabe’s in club soccer with the Sockers. “We’re in some sort of funk right now, but we’re not down and out, either. We’re going to get it together really soon and get back to where we need to be in time for the postseason.”
The Saxons attacked with pace and width for most of the first half, but lacked the necessary bite in the final third to solve McCabe and her mates along the back, who had trouble dealing with Eberle and Kelsey Steenstrup at midfield and whomever Charvat had on either side of the pair, including Riley Williams, who turned in some real positive work.
“There was a lot of ebb and flow to this game, but we had our troubles in the first half with (Schaumburg) by not marking, or taking care of their players on the outside,” said Prospect coach Tom Froats. “But in the second half we switched to four in the back, and by pushing Elena (Cukurs) into the backline we seemed to be better organized and more confident after the break.”
Kelly Ziegenfuss cleared a dangerous ball at the spot after Steenstrup flashed a wonderful serve through the 6-yard box at 19 minutes, and McCabe charged off her line on numerous occasions with the utmost confidence and lack of fear to pull balls out of the air, sometimes stretching to corral shots on frame from a variety of Saxons.
Eberle put Alexa Ben through just before intermission, but McCabe pulled the ball off the boots of the Saxons’ leading goal-scorer to snuff that chance.
Mary Rose Pettenuzzo and Taylor Smith were stout in the middle for the Knights during the first half, winning their fair share of 50-50 and second balls, while tackling with gusto to help slow the Saxons.
After the break, Prospect’s attack came to life, creating a few chances against Schaumburg keeper Brooke Schocker, who shared time in the net with Tressa Palcheck.
After a patient build-up, Jenny Novak went wide after Cukurs helped the sophomore get in close. Later, Rachel Suarez had plenty of pace on the outside for the Knights and combined with Kelly Iovino and Jesse Petrovski to threaten the Saxons several times.
“We probably were called for 3-4 off-sides in that second half,” said Froats, “and we created a lot of good things as well, but we just weren’t able to finish on any of those chances.”
In overtime, McCabe held on tightly when Steenstrup ran into the keeper as she tried to catch up to a Becky Sneddon serve to the back post. The Knights, in the closing moments of the match, put a scare into the Saxons’ faithful with a scrum in front of the net which took a long time for for Charvat’s backline to clear.
“The action was up and down, and both teams played with a lot of heart and energy,” Charvat said. “For us, I think if we can just get that first one in, then maybe our offense will wake up and finally get back to where it was.”