Girls soccer: Harvest Christian ousted in regional final
Growing up, Johnsburg’s Liz Smith used to consider her speed to be a weakness.
Smith couldn’t find a way to control it for the longest time. She often lost her composure in matches because of it. Instead of using it to her benefit, Smith let her speed get the best of her, often dribbling out of bounds and out of scoring chances.
On Tuesday, Smith showed how she’s learned to use that speed as a strength.
Smith raced past Harvest Christian and tallied her first career playoff hat trick to lead the Skyhawks past the Lions 4-2 to win the Class 1A Marian Central regional championship. Johnsburg captured its third straight regional title.
“It means the world,” said Smith, a junior. “This means so much to us that we won regionals. Obviously each and every one of us go out there and give it our all, and I love it when it’s a competitive game between the two teams. It’s just great to get out there and have a good competition.”
It took a while for both teams to find their footings early in Tuesday’s match. Johnsburg (9-6) had both of the match’s two shots on goal over the first 30 minutes before Smith broke the match open late in the first half.
Smith sprinted toward the ball and outran a couple Harvest Christian defenders as it rolled toward the Lions’ goal. Once the ball bounced off Harvest Christian senior goalkeeper Tia Bales, Smith jumped over her and scored to make it 1-0 with 5:33 left in the first half.
She used her speed to create good scoring chances on her next two goals. Smith outpaced a couple of Lions defenders and knocked in a goal with 48 seconds left in the first half and then scored again off a rebound with 37:18 left in the match.
“The one thing I love about Liz, and I think that a lot of people don’t always give her credit for, is how hard she works to win a ball back,” Johnsburg coach Rob Eastland said. “The people notice how far she goes to a goal, they’ll notice maybe she scores, she misses, but man, that kid just doesn’t stop working. So I think that’s actually where our greatest assets are.”
Harvest Christian (15-1) didn’t let up after falling into a 3-0 hole. Senior Daphne Brown scored less than a minute after Smith’s third goal with 36:54 left in the match. Brown made it 3-2 with a goal off a corner kick with 30:04 left.
But the Skyhawks turned away late scoring chances by the Lions, and sophomore Charlie Eastland scored with 17:55 left to put the match away.
Johnsburg credited its up-and-down season for pulling out Tuesday’s championship. The Skyhawks started the season 7-2 and had aspirations of winning a Kishwaukee River Conference title. But Johnsburg ended the regular season losing four of its last five matches.
“I feel like it built up our resilience, to be honest,” Charlie Eastland said. “I think we were in such a rough patch that coming out here, we came out here wanting to win. We wanted to win so badly because of how we had lost a bunch. We’ve wanted it so bad, we dug deep and we went for it.”
Despite the loss, Harvest Christian coach Brandon Keeran felt the same sort of resilience from his team. Keeran was proud that his team overcame a three-goal deficit to give itself a chance at tying the match late.
“It shows who we are and it shows the fight we gave,” Keeran said. “Unfortunately it came out with a loss, but I’m proud of my girls for fighting the entire way through.”
Johnsburg will continue its playoff run Friday in the semifinals of the Class 1A Richmond-Burton Sectional. The Skyhawks will play either Cristo Rey St. Martin or Regina, who were playing for the Class 1A Cristo Rey St. Martin regional title Tuesday night.
Smith believed Tuesday’s win could be a confidence booster as the Skyhawks try to win their first sectional title since 2017.
“I hope that we can take [this confidence boost], our trainings and just take them with a serious mindset and we can come into this with a lot of confidence,” Smith said. “I think we’re going to do great if we keep playing the way we know how to play and we keep picking each other up along the way.”