Girls soccer: Short-handed Geneva stops South Elgin

An uneven effort by Geneva was good enough.

Missing several starters, the Vikings scored 2 first-half goals and made them stand up in a 3-1 defeat of South Elgin at Millennium Field in a game marred by a serious injury.

South Elgin's Sarah Boghossian went down late in the first half and remained on the field for more than 30 minutes while an ambulance was called. Storm coach Laura Snow said she was being treated at a local hospital for a dislocated knee.

Prior to that, the Vikings had jumped out to a 2-0 lead. Jenna Dominguez got Geneva on the board in the fifth minute, taking a beautiful cross from Sydney Gratz and burying it in the wide open net.

Just before the stoppage, Geneva (5-1-1) took a 2-0 lead on an own goal by South Elgin. Chloe Frison was the only Viking in the vicinity.

After intermission, the Storm seemed to come back with renewed intensity. Although Ava Geen's goal following a scrum in front of the net made it 3-0, the Storm pushed up more aggressively, generating several scoring chances in the process.

"I told my team that they came out in the second half and overcame a lot of adversity," Snow said. "It's hard to respond and come back in a game after seeing a teammate go down like that."

The effort finally paid off when Katrina Barthelt knifed through the defense and beat Geneva keeper Paige MacRitchie from point-blank range.

"It was a bit of a frustrating game for us," said Geneva coach Megan Owens. "I think we lacked consistency across the board and that's just something we need to learn from, to have the same effort level consistently throughout the 80 minutes."

MacRitchie turned in a solid, 6-save performance after the Vikings' regular keeper received stitches following the Vikings' previous game against Wheaton Warrenville South.

Owens lauded several other individual efforts.

"Sidney Gratz did a great job for us," Owens said. "Jenna Dominguez's effort up top, Lindsay Ferris and Ava Geen out there were a spark for us."

Megan McClure was solid in the net for South Elgin, making 7 saves, including a leaping effort to rob Gratz early in the game.

Barthelt was everywhere for South Elgin with at least 7 scoring chances. MacRitchie made a diving save on one effort. She had a chance to draw South Elgin within 1 on a late breakaway, but defender Kaitlyn Cannon broke it up.