Girls soccer: St. Charles East, Burlington Central battle to scoreless draw
Strong winds, cold temps and rain should be what you are getting away from for spring break, not what you are playing the beautiful game in.
Burlington Central and St. Charles East battled in those yucky conditions during Tuesday’s morning’s nonconference game at Norris Stadium and ultimately no one prevailed, although the rain finally subsided as the game ended in a 0-0 draw.
St. Charles East (4-1-2) has now scored just three goals in its past four games as the Saints were blanked for the first time this spring.
“It’s kind of been our identity,” Saints coach Vince DiNuzzo said. “We defend at a high level. We limited their chances, I think they had maybe two chances to score and even then they didn’t really seem like a threat on goal which says a lot about our defensive organization.
“But we can’t score. We can’t finish right now. We had a plethora of chances — four or five breakaways, a number of other quality set pieces, dead balls. I felt like we played the majority of the game in their half and had zero to show for it.”
With just under 30 minutes remaining, Saints senior Mackenzie Loomis got past Rockets sophomore goalkeeper Kenzie Lorkowski but her scoring attempt was thwarted when sophomore defender Alison Kowall swooped in stop the attack.
About five minutes prior to that, Saints freshman defender Averie Foulkes narrowly curved in a lengthy shot, but found the far post instead where it caromed away harmlessly.
It was simply that kind of day for the Saints, who applied a lot of pressure at times, but were repeatedly denied.
“I think part of the mindset is that we created six chances in that first half so there’s going to be more coming, so it’s OK,” DiNuzzo said. “But then you run out of time and suddenly you’re defending a free kick with two seconds left. It’s one of those things where we’ve got to learn from our mistakes.”
Last Tuesday the Saints lost 3-1 to Crystal Lake Central in the Rose Augsburg-Drach Invitational.
“We talked after Crystal Lake Central about creating more scoring chances and how we’ve got to finish them,” DiNuzzo said. “We’re getting better, but we’re not where we need to be at. It’s early. We have a lot of new faces we’ve got to mold. We’re trying to allow them the freedom to be creative by themselves on the final part of the field and we just got to get a couple more ideas and get some repetition and finish some of these chances.”
Many of those new faces are among the 14 underclassmen on the roster.
“I’ve kind of forbidden the ‘young’ word because we’re not going to make an excuse,” DiNuzzo said. “We have a bunch of kids who are competent, good soccer players regardless of age. As a coaching staff we just have to find the right combination of players to put ourselves in a successful situation up top.”
Burlington Central (1-5-2) may not have been as dangerous as the Saints, but the Rockets were close at times to being the team that broke through.
Just a couple minutes into the second half, sophomore Kendall Grigg was able to get inside the box for the Rockets but saw her attack quickly dissipated.
“We were competitive and it’s always fun to play someone that’s highly competitive like that,” Rockets coach Jess Arneson said. “I would’ve loved to pull out a win like that, and a big part of that is gaining confidence too and we’ll get there.”
The Rockets were coming off their first win of the season, a 6-1 game against Rockton Hononegah on Saturday in which sophomore Mekenzie Rogers scored 4 goals and delivered a pair of assists.
“Rogers has put a lot of goals away for us so I’m not really surprised by that,” Arneson said. “She’s a phenomenal player. But we’re trying to learn we can’t just rely on one player and one system, we have to work together as a team. So that’s the key and why we’re struggling but that’s also why we’ll be successful because once we get all those cogs working, it’ll be beautiful.”
The tough schedule that the Rockets have faced, which has included Naperville Central, St. Charles North and these Saints among other 3A schools, has gotten the team ready for the Fox Valley Conference in the past. It should do so again this spring.
“One of my players said this happens to us every year,” Arneson said. “We start out slow because we’re trying to work a difficult system and as soon as something clicks, it really comes into focus. They know that and expect that. They know we play hard teams like this so when we go into conference play we’re not surprised by anything. They usually keep their heads up pretty well.”