Girls soccer: Warren holds off Glenbrook South
Courtney Chomko has turned into a team player with the number of assists she's dished out this season. The Florida Southern commit had 4 more assists out of the 5 goals Warren scored on Friday night, which now gives her 16.
It turned out to be just enough for Warren to hold off host Glenbrook South 5-4 in the Glenbrook Cup in Glenview.
Cate Cullison and Elizabeth Weinberg each had a pair of goals and Megan Best had the other one for the Blue Devils (8-5-2 and 2-0 in the tournament). Villanova-bound Mikayla Stadler had a hat trick to lead the Titans (14-3-2, 1-1) and Julia DiSano scored the other goal.
Warren has one more game remaining, hosting Grayslake North (4-5-2, 0-2) Saturday morning at 8 a.m.
Chomko has been a team leader for the improving Blue Devils.
"Assists honestly mean more than goals to me, being a team player and the playmaker of the team," said Chomko, who also has 4 goals. "It's a way for me to contribute to the team. I just like to lay the ball of to them, because they are a young team and I feel like I'm the leader of the group. I just feel that I'm leading them the way."
Warren began the game scoring three times in the first half, even though the Blue Devils began the match with three players missing with injuries and two others out sick.
"Before we showed up today and when we got on the bus," Warren coach Ryan McCabe said, "I mentioned how good of a side (Glenbrook South) has and they showed how to storm back. We could've of fallen and not had an excuse to not get this one. I can't say enough about the grit my girls have and I'm proud on how they came out."
Weinberg scored the opening goal for Warren in the fifth minute off a cross pass from Cullison. Then Chomko followed with a cross on the foot to Weinberg, who found her second goal in the ninth minute. Chomko set up the third goal on a through ball to Cullison in the 20th minute.
Glenbrook South came out of halftime with a comeback attitude and scored twice to cut the margin to 3-2. DiSano netted a goal in the 43rd and Stadler beat two Blue Devils' defenders with another in the 53rd minute.
The Blue Devils responded with two more goals in three minutes. Best took a feed from Chomko and hit the bottom of the crossbar and into the goal in the 60th minute. Then, Cullison followed up with her second tally off another Chomko assist two minutes later for a 5-2 advantage.
The Titans fought their way back again with a pair of goals, both on penalty kicks. Stadler converted in the 65th and 78th minute to cut the lead to a one-goal difference.
"We had to sort things out defensively," Glenbrook South coach Mark Daniels said. "We didn't play well for the first two-thirds of this game and 30 minutes of the first half. I thought it was more us. It's hard to put your finger on it. We worked hard with our opportunities, but you can't do that against a good team like Warren."
Grayslake North played against Deerfield in the earlier game but lost 1-0 on Friday night. The Warriors scored their only goal early in the first half.
"It's unfortunate that we didn't take our chances and we gave up a soft goal early on," Grayslake North coach Adam DeCaluwe said. "Unfortunately, (Deerfield) has had our number the last couple of times we've played them. It seems like we're stopping them but we're better than that and we were creating chances against the wind in the second half. We're not giving up, but its one thing that's hurting us."
Deerfield (8-9-1, 1-1) got its goal in the fourth minute of play when Riley Schimanski sent a cross to Marissa Hyland in front and she found the back of the net.
Grayslake North did have a chance to tie the match later in the half but the Knights had a penalty kick that went off the crossbar.
"I'll take a victory anytime that we can get it," Deerfield coach Rich Grady said. "We played well, but we didn't generate much offensively. Just happy that we didn't give up a goal."