Girls soccer: Barrington shuts out Larkin for regional crown
The Barrington girls soccer team was a little bit disappointed Wednesday when it didn't get to play its opening game in the class 3A state playoffs.
The Fillies were able to advance to Friday's regional final as their opponent (Rockford Auburn) had to forfeit, but still slightly downhearted that they weren't able to take the field.
Still, according to coach Ryan Stengren, the lack of a game two days ago gave the Fillies more time for preparation.
"We have 14 new kids to varsity," said Stengren, "so they were all anxious to play. But we wound up having a really good day of training, and today we came out and executed some of the things we had been training on."
Friday Barrington made up for lost time, scoring three times in the first ten minutes en route to a 9-0 Fillies-hosted regional championship victory over Larkin.
All three of those initial goals came off corner kicks.
"They knew what they were doing," said Larkin (7-2-3) coach Mike Huizar of the Fillies. "They worked hard and they got the victory. Our girls have been working extremely hard too, but it's been a difficult year that we've had to adjust to.
"We came into the game with only 16 on our roster so we were already short, then we had a couple of injuries early on today. The last week of this season was a lot of games at once, four very tough conference games and then a hard-fought playoff game against Huntley (a win). We did well, but it was just a lot all at once."
Barrington senior Kate McGreevy opened the scoring in the 5th minute on a header off Brooke Brown's corner kick, then 2 more goals, both off the set pieces, came in rapid succession by Jen Devona just minutes later.
Brown followed that up with another Fillies score, this one from 28 yards out on a free kick.
"We had gotten a good spot," Brown said, "and I just wanted to put it on frame - and I got lucky with the goal."
Brown and teammate Kate Lupinsky scored late in the first half to give Barrington a 6-0 lead at intermission.
Senior Gracie Stagnito played well on the back line for Barrington early in the second half, dismissing the ball from Fillies territory on a couple of chances from the Royals.
The Fillies tallied 3 more times in the second half to account for the final score, the first of which came off the foot of Riley Raynor after a long run down the middle of the pitch.
"We challenged our second group at halftime, said Stengren, "and I was really happy with the way they came through and did exactly what I was asking them to do."
Barrington (14-1-2) backup goalkeeper Abby Raynor, made the save of the game late in the second half.
Jordan Vopat, who did a great job of generating offense the entire game for Larkin, fired a point-blank laser that looked destined for the back of the net but Raynor, a sophomore, made a leaping save by deflecting the ball over the crossbar.
"Abby got a lot of playing time today," said Stengren. "She trains hard - that was an acrobatic save she made there at the end - and she's going to be a really good goalie in the future for us."