St. Edward shakes off Elgin Academy

After St. Edward put up a combined 11 goals in its previous 2 meetings with Elgin Academy, the Hilltoppers needed to do something different.

Elgin Academy did, staying with St. Edward for nearly the entire game of Tuesday’s semifinal game of the Class 1A Genoa-Kingston regional. The Green Wave scored once in each half to take a 2-0 victory.

“Hats off to Elgin Academy,” Green Wave coach Tim Brieger said. “They game planned for us something fierce. They had our number defensively. We escaped today.”

The No. 1 seeded Green Wave (15-7-2) will face the winner of today’s match between Westminster Christian and host G-K for the regional title on Friday. Elgin Academy finished the season at 11-8-3.

The Green Wave’s focus Friday will be to convert some of the missed opportunities into goals. St. Edward had 18 shots on in the game, but it took until there was 17:43 in the first half for the Green Wave to finally wake up the scoreboard. Freshman Megan Kearney drove down the field and drilled a shot at Hilltoppers’ goalkeeper Alysson Wittmeyer (16 saves). The ball bounced off Wittmeyer and into the net to give St. Edward a 1-0 lead.

“I got a great feed from Allison,” Kearney said. “It’s the beginning of the game that’s always the hardest. (But) I knew we were going to score.”

The Green Wave had missed 5 shots before Kearney converted on the goal. Sophomore midfielder Monica Ramirez had 3 shots on goal in the game’s first 19 minutes. Although they were quality shots, she just couldn’t get one into the net.

“It was very frustrating,” Ramirez said. “

The Green Wave had more of the same in the second half. Again St. Edward had 9 shots on goal, and again it took the Wave a while to score. St. Edward converted a late goal when Corey Lepoudre scored off a pass from junior Kimmy Smith with 1 minute, 40 seconds left in the game.

Elgin Academy had marked up on defense, with sophomore Veronica Clements leading the charge. Clements had a solid effort in the backfield and pushed up to midfield during the end of the game, freeing up the field for the Green Wave’s final score.

“The girls were really focused coming off the bus and they were ready to play,” Elgin Academy coach Shannon Walter said. “Last year we lost to the 7-0 in this game. This year we were more prepared, more focused. We knew where they were going to be and we covered that very well.”