Girls soccer: South Elgin blanks Streamwood in regional opener
All season South Elgin girls soccer coach Laura Szwaja has been urging her team to take more shots.
On Saturday the Storm finally heeded her advice with a lot of those shots going into the net as South Elgin (6-13-1) rolled to an 8-0 win over visiting Streamwood in first round action of the Class 3A Streamwood regional.
Missy Greco led the way for the Storm with 4 goals.
"The big thing today was we were attacking," Szwaja said. "I have been telling them all along we are never going to get goals unless we shoot. They were enjoying being out there and that got us clicking. Once we got the first goal it seemed to give us confidence to take more shots."
After a back and forth scoreless battle for the first 20-plus minutes the Storm got on the board with 19:34 left in the first half when Nicole Peeters broke free on a pass from Citlali Sanchez and dribbled past the goalkeeper for an open net goal.
Later in the half Greco opened the floodgates. Starting at 3:45 left in the first half Greco scored 3 goals in a matter of 2 minutes and 9 seconds.
"I knew I could win the ball out of the air," Greco said. "So I went after them aggressively. We have had trouble scoring all season, but today we connected on our passes and were making crosses and to players on the other end. It was a very good feeling."
It only took Greco only 1:22 into the second half to score her fourth goal to give her 13 on the season.
"That was typical Missy today," Szwaja said. "When she wants the ball she goes right after it and gets it. She knows how to go into a crowd for the ball and get in position to get her shot."
Bridget Bondi, Gabriela Danesi, and Madeline Kordecki added goals for the Storm down the stretch.
Storm goalkeeper Ashley Kopczyk needed just 3 saves to record the shutout.
The Storm advance to play Fox Valley Conference champion and top seed Crystal Lake South (17-1-1) on Tuesday at Streamwood.
"I have not seen them play yet this year, so we'll need to gather some info on them," Szwaja said. "I just know they score a lot of goals. But now that we have a little momentum people might be surprised what we can do."
\Streamwood (4-10) was short 5 starters because of previously arranged commitments,
"That definitely hurt our chances," Streamwood coach Kristen Duffy said. "We just left too many of their players unmarked. We had a lot of young players this year and we will continue working on developing them."