Vernon Hills clinches Prairie tie

Despite playing without six starters on Monday, the Vernon Hills girls soccer team found strength in numbers.

The Cougars handled visiting Lakes 5-1 to clinch at least a share of the North Suburban Conference's Prairie Division title.

This much is certain: Vernon Hills will represent the Prairie in the NSC championship game at 7 p.m. Thursday against Lake Division champ Lake Zurich. The Cougars will host that game.

“Lakes is a good team and a good program,” said Vernon Hills coach Vince Deluca, whose team improved to 11-7-1 overall and 5-0 in the division. “We came out and had the better of the play.”

Vernon Hills can win the Prairie title outright if it beats Antioch (9-8-1, 4-1) in a suspended game scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at Vernon Hills. If Antioch wins the match, it would create a three-way tie with Lakes (12-8-1, 5-1), Antioch and Vernon Hills.

Vernon Hills has outscored its Prairie opponents 29-1 in five games. The Eagles were the first divisional foe to score against the Cougars.

“We actually don't keep track of that,” DeLuca said of his team's dominance in goals score and allowed. “We keep track on improving in each game. Our goal was to get to the championship game.”

Against Lakes, the Cougars scored 37 seconds after the start of the match as Courtney Corrado produced an unassisted goal.

“The whole point was to take a shot and see what happens,” DeLuca said. “This game can be funny sometimes — you put a shot on goal, and then it goes in.”

It was the first goal of the season for Corrado, who struck a 40-yard free kick that glanced off the far post.

“I was just relaxed and shot it on goal,” Corrado said. “I was actually trying to cross it to the top of the six and it sailed in. We were happy to get the early goal, and the momentum going our way.”

Kristen Guglielmi added another Cougars' goal in the 12th minute for a 2-0 advantage.

Lakes cut the lead in half at 2-1 in the 49th minute as Jenna Baker was knocked down in the penalty area and converted a penalty kick.

“We were still the game,” Lakes coach Kevin Kullby said. “Some days these girls show up and play well. We just didn't have our best stuff.”

The Cougars responded with unanswered goals from Kaitlin Gramins, Alex Goldstein (assisted by Katherine Koczwara) and Brianna Bahlmann (from an Amy Andrea corner kick) over the next 15 minutes of the second half to take command.