According to plan, for St. Charles North
St. Charles North girls soccer coach Ruth Vostal will have to put her retirement celebration on hold for at least a couple more days - and maybe longer, the way her team is playing.
That's because Vostal, who is North's only soccer coach in its 15-year history and is set to step down at season's end, coached the No. 3-seeded North Stars to a convincing 4-0 win over No. 2 seed Wheaton North on Wednesday in the Class 3A Schaumburg sectional semifinals.
"Before the game, we talked about coming out early in the first and second halves," said Vostal. "And the kids listened and scored in the first five minutes of the game, so we tried it in the second … and the girls followed through with some great goals."
Senior forward Hanna Durocher got the North Stars (20-2-2) headed in the right direction in the first when she blasted a shot from 20 yards out that weaved its way past four Falcon defenders and past freshman goalie Zoe Welsh for a 1-0 lead just three minutes into the contest.
The Falcons (16-3-3) countered by playing more aggressively and despite several missed opportunities to score the equalizer, trailed just 1-0 at intermission.
However, they would get no closer. Just 35 seconds into the second half, St. Charles freshman forward Gia Wahlberg notched the first of her 2 goals to make it 2-0 and deflate Wheaton North's morale.
"We had our fair share of chances in the first half and I thought it was anybody's game at halftime," said Wheaton coach Tim McEvilly. "Then we allowed that goal early in the second and it kind of shook us up a bit … it was the first time our team has looked young all year."
Midway through the second half, senior midfielder Lizzie Parrilli got in on the scoring to make it 3-0, and then Wahlberg tacked on another goal three minutes after that to put the game out of reach at 4-0.
"We knew coming in that this game would be pretty tough and our No. 1 goal was to come out and play harder than they did," said Wahlberg. "And our main objective was to score early and we did that in both halves."
St. Charles North will meet Conant in the sectionals championship matchup at 3 p.m. Saturday.