Girls soccer: Glenbard East falls in second overtime

As a program that had never won a girls soccer regional title prior to this year, Glenbard East has proved that it belongs among the state's elite.

It hasn't been a run of good luck that brought the Rams to North Central in Naperville to battle Collinsville in a Class 3A semifinal, but rather that they have an exceptionally talented team that's been dominant all spring.

It was a bit of bad luck that caught up with the Rams and kept them from playing for a state title on Saturday as Collinsville rallied for a 2-1 victory in overtime.

"The girls played well and we've been on a tremendous run," Rams coach Kent Overbey said. "Give credit to Collinsville. They really played hard and came out hard in the second half. I think Naperville North (supersectional) was a big win and maybe we took a step back a little bit."

Glenbard East (23-5) jumped to the early advantage when Holly Ward connected with Brittany Paganucci for beautiful goal just 9:48 into play in the opening half.

Collinsville (22-1-2) put on quite the attack to draw even, but the Rams constantly applied pressure to make scoring opportunities difficult. During one particular sequence the Kahoks had two close-range shots thwarted by Glenbard East goalkeeper Sierra Dana and then another by Paige Taylor.

After such an awesome defensive display, no one could've expected to see a high bounding ball result in the equalizer, but that's what transpired with 25:42 left in the second half.

Dayle McEwen sent it in.

"We had no back-post run and I wasn't looking to shoot on the play but for someone to run in on it," she said. "The goalie misjudged it and it went past her, but it wasn't a real shot."

That didn't matter. What mattered was that it tied things at 1-1.

Collinsville threatened more for the remainder of regulation and overtime and outshot the Rams 20-7 while also being awarding nine corner kicks while the Rams only had one.

Neither team could pull ahead in regulation or the first overtime, but Collinsville's Emily Holten suddenly found herself with the ball at the top of the box with 7:57 remaining in the second half and blasted her team-best 25th goal to into the right side of the net.

That proved to be the game winner as the Rams only could a muster a couple of attempts to tie things up the rest of the way.

"We came into this knowing we had nothing to prove to anyone but to just play our game like we've been doing on our way to state," Glenbard East senior Amanda Chlebek said. "We just happened to run into a team that pulled through and before the game Overbey said whatever the outcome, let's make them earn it. I think we made them do that."

Last year Collinsville lost to Neuqua Valley in the state semifinals while Glenbard East's season was well over at this point in the calendar.

On Saturday six Glenbard East seniors will graduate and then rush off to North Central to battle Huntley for third place at 5 p.m.