Girls soccer: Wheaton North battles for hard-fought draw with Wheaton Warrenville South
Guess what Wheaton North senior volleyball standout Mary Whittington is doing this spring.
Guessing.
At least that’s what she said helped her deny a PK in the first half of Thursday’s DuKane Conference game at Wheaton Warrenville South.
Behind Whittington’s guess, the Falcons were able to battle the Tigers to a 0-0 tie and earn dual ownership of the traveling trophy for the Wheaton Cup. The Falcons will possess it for the next six months before the Tigers get to put it in the school’s trophy case.
“That was the first one I stopped like that,” Whittington said. “I feel like for PKs it’s kind of a guessing game a little bit. So I don’t want to say I got lucky, but I kind of did guess. But I feel it kind of boosted the momentum for the rest of the game. It was a good starting play to start the tone for the team to really push through.”
When the Falcons needed a keeper, sophomore forward Ellie Whittington did some talking to her older sister. The rest is unfolding now.
“I couldn’t be happier for Mary,” Falcons coach Tim McEvilly said. “For a kid to come out and having never really spent time in the net, to save that PK it makes a difference in the game. Despite her inexperience, she is amazingly calm. And she’s gone through a lot of struggles and you see that on the scoreboard, but the great thing that she does and not a lot of athletes can do this, she lets the bad stuff go. She doesn’t dwell on it, she worries about next opportunities and tonight she kind of exhibited that.”
Wheaton North (3-7-2, 1-1-2) had dropped its last five games.
“The defense did a really good job and Mary did a great job of keeping our momentum and not letting them get to our heads or get past us,” Falcons senior forward Sophia Martinez said. “Our determination and drive today really kept us in the game, which was really good to see.”
Wheaton Warrenville South (6-1-3, 1-0-1) had its share of scoring chances, peppering the box with threats, but couldn’t finish any of them as the Tigers were blanked for the first time. They lost for the first time this season against Naperville Central, 7-2, on Tuesday.
“It’s been a rough week,” Tigers coach Guy Callipari said. ”Regardless of the emotional piece tied to it, we had some great opportunities, and sometimes we overhit the ball as opposed to finishing. We’re just trying to shoot to get a shot off but we’ve got to have better ideas and some clarity in what we’re trying to do regardless with the ball in the final third. And we haven’t had any issues obviously with that (this season), but got to give credit where credit is due — Wheaton had a great five-man lock centrally and it was tough to break down. They always had a toe or foot on it and made some good 50/50 tackles.”
Tigers junior Kelsey Clousing had the host’s last solid scoring chance in the 77th minute, receiving a ball in the box but sending her shot wide right.
“I felt we had the ball most of the time on their side of the field and we took way more shots than they did,” Tigers junior Anna Ittersagen said. “We just couldn’t finish today, but we’ll keep our heads up.”