Girls soccer: Musial scores twice to lead York past Downers Grove South for regional title
After winning its first West Suburban Silver Conference championship since 2011, the York girls soccer team was far from satisfied.
The Dukes had higher aspirations and on Friday night, they added a second consecutive Class 3A Morton regional title to their resume.
Scoring a trio of goals in just over a 10-minute stretch of the second half, York pulled away for a 4-1 victory over Downers Grove South.
Sophia Musial found the back of the net twice, including the opening goal with 15 minutes left in the first half off a rebound of a Maggie Quinn shot.
Musial, a DePaul commit who is playing high school soccer for the first time, later added a 25-yard laser into the top left-corner of the goal to make it 3-1.
”This means a lot to us,” said Musial, who concentrated on club soccer her first three years. “It’s a really special thing. We want to make it far and this is the first step. Winning this match gives us a lot of confidence for the future ones.
”This team is special. We have a family aspect to us. We enjoy going to practice every day. We have the same goals and we support each other.”
Quinn scored the go-ahead goal from inside the box with 25:47 remaining off a cross from the right-side. Stella Kohl, also in her first season of high school soccer, finished off the scoring with a 35-yard direct kick just over a minute after Musial’s second tally.
”Everyone has come together and worked for each other to make this happen,” said Kohl, who will continue her soccer career at Loyola. “We are confident and as long as we keep picking each other up, we will be fine.”
The Dukes (17-1-1), who have allowed just six goals on the spring, advance to take on Downers Grove North at 4:30 pm Tuesday in a Hinsdale Central Sectional semifinal.
”Our entire backline (Mia Barton, Cate Carter and Ava Hansmann) have been fantastic,” Kohl said. “If it wasn’t for our back line, we wouldn’t be where we are. They shut it down, they are literally brick walls. I trust my entire backline with my life.”
York’s only loss came on April 18 to New Trier.
”We have a lot of senior leaders on the team,” York coach Stevan Dobric said. “Ava, Michaela (Quinn) and Reilly (Costello) have been with me since freshman year. They saw that year when we only won three games what it takes to play at the varsity level.
”Every year since we’ve worked harder and gotten better. And we had a great season last year too and we’ve been able to build off that.”
A very young team, the Mustangs (10-8-2) were able to turn the tables on Morton - after losing 1-0 to Morton in the regular season - in the regional semifinal to reach this point.
With five sophomores starting, including goalie Delia Whaley, and five freshmen seeing time on the field, it was freshman Gianna Lamb who scored off a corner kick from Marifer Duran to knot the score at 1 in the opening half.
Whaley finished with seven saves in only her third varsity match.
”We know we are a young team,” DGS coach Chris Hernandez said. “So we talked about fight. We fought hard. We knew this would be a big task. York is good defensively and they have a lot of speed.
”But the future is bright with this group. I’m proud of the youngsters and I’m proud of our seniors.”