Girls soccer: Grayslake North, Wauconda play to a tie
The race in the Northern Lake County Conference is heating up in girls soccer, even though the weather isn't helping out.
In the heat of the battle, Grayslake North maintained its opportunity near the top with a 2-2 draw with host Wauconda in on Monday afternoon.
The Knights (5-5-3 overall) have a slight lead at 3-0-2 with conference matches remaining at Grant (Tuesday) and against Lakes (next week) while Wauconda (10-2-2) now is at 3-0-1 with matches left against North Chicago (Tuesday), Round Lake (Thursday) and at Antioch next week. Round Lake is also at 3-0-1 and plays at Grayslake Central (Tuesday), at Wauconda (Thursday) and at North Chicago next week. The Panthers defeated Antioch 4-1 Monday night.
Grayslake North finished out strong in the Glenbrook Cup with a 2-0 victory over host Warren early Saturday morning and carried it over to Monday.
"We're playing up to our level," Grayslake North coach Adam DeCaluwe said. "The first two games in that tournament and in the entire tournament in general. We gave up three goals against the three top teams, and we scored two. When you look at the overall performance, I'm happy.
"(Wauconda) was dictating play and they're one of the better teams in the area. We tried to even it and when they consistently gave it, they can be dangerous. We want them to be aggressive, be in their selves and play in their half. But when you lose the ball, you can get caught in the counterattack."
On the Wauconda side, the tie left the Bulldogs with bit of a missed opportunity of taking over the NLCC.
"(Grayslake North) is playing confident lately and they've had some good games," Wauconda coach Beau Shogren said. "They looked that way today. In the second half, we created some chances. We put one in, but not enough to finish the deal. It does make the rest of the way a little more interesting. It would've been nice to gat a win here, but it now makes it a little bit margin of error down the road. I think our girls will learn a lot from this game. We'll look at film and see what we can do better."
The Bulldogs opened the scoring just two minutes into the match. Belle Johnson scored on a ball that was deflected in the box for a 1-0 lead.
The Knights came back in the second half, Laura Hansen hit a 35-yard kick under the crossbar for her fifth goal this season tying the contest at 1-1 in the 44th minute. Just two minutes later, Johnson found Megan Sinnott on a pass. She controlled it and beat a defender to score on a breakaway. That put Wauconda back in front 2-1.
Grayslake North tied it back up again in the 59th minute off a corner kick by Hansen to the middle of the box which Katelyn Dameron turned into a goal on a volley kick.
Wauconda had a couple more chances to take the game in the final 10 minutes, but the Knights keeper Emily Dunne made a key point blank save and a couple others.
Wauconda had a few other chances at scoring in the first half, but saw the ball go off the post, crossbar and Grayslake North keeper Emily Dunne stopped a few shots. She had 6 saves for the match.
"It's exciting to get a good tie against a good team," Dunne said. "I just think don't let the ball go past me and step in front (of the ball). I just do everything I can for the team. Wauconda was a good team."