Girls soccer: Second-half goal puts Maine South over Vernon Hills

Vernon Hills' girls soccer team was riding a two-game winning streak after dealing with a number of competitive teams. The Cougars had another tough opponent, Maine South, which made a visit on Wednesday night.

What Vernon Hills needed was composure and the mentality of scoring a goal. However, the Cougars played their competitive possession style and showed some pretty good defense throughout the matchup.

Maine South found a goal in the second half that was enough for a 1-0 victory over Vernon Hills in the Central Suburban League crossover match.

"I thought in the first half, we were the better team," said Vernon Hills coach Mike McCaulou, whose team dropped to 2-3-1. "That's the game of soccer when you get a couple chances of scoring and you don't put it away in the first half. Give credit to (Maine South). They pressed us and did a good job doing that (in the second half). We weren't composed, they knew our style of soccer. We needed to make better decisions to play better soccer. Unfortunately, it wasn't a great goal but it was a goal. That's all it takes is one goal. We had four quality chances (in the first half) and second half, we just got sloppy.

"We need to be more physical, show more heart and aggression. I know this team had more to give in that second half."

The Hawks' (6-0) winning goal was in the 56th minute off a throw-in from Dana McMillian into the box that went off a Cougars player's back to Payton Tauber, which she redirected right under the crossbar.

"I knew I was close to the 18," Tauber said. "We practice shooting from that area a lot. So I was going to make a pass to the center. But it was a split-second decision. We had talked about how the (Vernon Hills) goalie (Daniella Jarrell) was very good at saving high shots. We had to either pass on the ground or do a chip. So the last second I thought to chip it."

Maine South keeper Amy Hartjen earned a clean sheet by making 4 stops. But the Hawks had a hard time dealing with what the Cougars offered them.

"(Vernon Hills) has a really nice team and they're well-organized and spread you out a lot," Maine South coach J.J. Crawford said. "They use a lot of a keeper-sweeper tactics, which they were running us to death. We just had to close down those angles. I told the girls we would get a fast break or a corner and I was wrong. We got a lucky deflection with a chip. It was a pretty even game and it could've gone either way. I knew when I looked at their previous game scores that we would have our work cut out for us."

Vernon Hills was ready for the matchup and freshman center midfielder Julia Kempf did a good job in handling the pressure of the Hawks setting up their plays.

"I thought they were really strong in the midfield," Kempf said. "It was pretty hard to control them, especially out of the air. Once we calmed down and started playing, we were able to get the ball down it all worked better."