Girls soccer: Deerfield's experience shows in victory over Vernon Hills

It's a work in progress for the Vernon Hills girls soccer team, as a group of underclassman are learning the game alongside the few players back with varsity experience.

The experience deficit showed on Tuesday as visiting Deerfield got past Vernon Hills 2-0 in PepsiCo Showdown tournament play in Vernon Hills on Tuesday night.

"I told the girls at the beginning of the season that we have a lot of freshmen," said Vernon Hills coach Mike McCaulou, whose roster had eight frosh ready to go for this game. "I just think that you get better with experience. But we need a lot of our players to step up, to become leaders."

Vernon Hills (3-5-1) suffered its fourth straight defeat. The Cougars lost to Deerfield (6-2) for a second time; the first setback came at the start of spring break.

Emma Pappano is one of many Cougars trying to make a little big of progress each time out.

"Our team has to start connecting better in the final third," said Pappano, a defensive midfielder. "We have to work better with our mids and our forwards. I thought our defense had an awesome start to the game."

Vernon Hills had its best scoring chance early in the second half, when Alex Ludolph was tripped up in the penalty area. But the Cougars couldn't convert the penalty kick as the attempt missed just wide of the post.

"I think every great player in the world misses PKs," McCaulou said. "I think our only reaction was that our heads went down after that. We did create a great opportunity to get the PK. If you bury it, then it's a different game - it totally changes the game. But we should've responded in a better way.

"Deerfield capitalized on it and outplayed us in the second half. The season goes by really fast, and we have to learn quickly."

Deerfield opened the scoring in the 31st minute. Melanie Imyak sent a corner kick into the penalty area, and Sophie Gray settled a bouncing ball and scored for the 1-0 lead.

Vernon Hills missed its chance to tie in the 43rd minute with the missed penalty kick.

The Warriors added an insurance goal six minutes later as Margot Sylvan lofted a shot up top off an assist from Erin Rosenzweig.

"Good to beat a team that will be in our sectional," Deerfield coach Rich Grady said. "It was a good game for us, because Vernon Hills likes to possess the ball and work it around so much."