St. Charles East blanks Streamwood
Something of a role reversal took place after St. Charles East's 3-0 girls soccer win at Streamwood Thursday.
The Sabres were happy with a solid effort against the perennial powerhouse from St. Charles while the Saints were mildly disappointed they didn't convert more chances.
Sophie Jendrzejczyk had a goal and an assist and Darcy Cunningham and Hayley Popiel also scored for the Saints in the Upstate Eight River Division opener for both teams at Millennium Field.
The Saints put 13 shots on goal, and that didn't count about a dozen more that hit the frame or missed by less than a foot on either side. The Saints also had a goal disallowed on an offside call.
"Definitely room for improvement in our shots to shots-on-target ratio," said St. Charles East coach Paul Jennison.
"We definitely could have played a lot better, but this is our third game," said Jendrzejczyk. "We're still getting warmed up. We've just got to work on finishing our chances."
Streamwood didn't get its first shot on goal until Tawny Carroll got past the defense and raced in on Saints' keeper Alison Chesterfield with just over 3 minutes left to play. Carroll got off a shot from point-blank range, then pounced on the rebound, but Chesterfield was there both times.
"There's a little club team rivalry going on with (Carroll)," said Chesterfield. "We play on the same club, so it was my goal to not let her score this game."
The game was scoreless until the 38th minute when Hannah Kolb ran up the left side and served up a perfect center to Jendrzejczyk, who fired it in. Prior to that, the Saints had 6 shots on goal. Cunningham hit the crossbar and an apparent goal by Shannon Gatehouse was waved off.
Cunningham made it 2-0 with a goal in the 53rd minute. Popiel gave the Saints some breathing room with about 3 minutes left, pouncing on a loose ball in front of the net.
Carroll had the Sabres' best chance of the first half on a breakaway but just missed as the ball rolled through the crease.
"Three-zero against St. Charles is really amazing, and I'm really proud of my teammates, actually," said Carroll.
"The girls played their hearts out today," said Streamwood coach Matt Polovin. "We didn't look at their jerseys and give up before the game started. The girls left it all on the field. A 3-0 score against St. Charles East, yeah, that's an amazing feat. Going back in history, its always been 7-0, 7-0, last year it was 7-1, games like that. And we had a couple of good chances, it could have been even closer than that."