St. Charles E. stuns SCN with 10 seconds left
There are, in any regulation high school girls soccer match, 4,800 seconds with which to work. Tuesday night, St. Charles East needed nearly every one of them to forge a 1-1 tie with crosstown rival St. Charles North.
The visitors, trailing since the 11th minute when Lauren Koehl’s sharp 17-yard shot from the right side of the penalty area, equalized on a Carly Pottle header with 10 seconds left in the Upstate Eight Conference River Division match.
Pottle’s goal came from a Darcy Cunningham pass from midfield to Clara Stoffel on the left wing, who then crossed to the right post, left wing cross. After the close-range shot hit the net, and after the final few seconds elapsed, the result sparked jubilant scenes from the Orange-shirted Saints at the final whistle.
“Clara had a beautiful cross to me and I just had to put my head on it,” Pottle said. “It was all that, really. I was just in the right place at the right time.”
Still, the Saints had a series of opportunities, from the opening exchanges when Jenny Barr had to clear a ball off the line for the North Stars. Carly Pottle forced another goal line clearance midway through the second half and the Saints had a penalty kick saved.
Then Pottle delivered the last-second heroics.
“This is one of those games where, if you play with heart, good things will happen,” St. Charles East coach Paul Jennison said. “We knew we were a massive underdog walking in here. That’s a Top 10 team in the state and we knew exactly what we were up against.”
St. Charles East (9-5-3, 3-1-1) played for the first time since its 4-1 defeat to Boylan at the Naperville Invitational.
“We know we’re a good team when we come out and give it everything we’ve got,” Jennison said. “Sometimes this year, we’ve let ourselves down. I’ve got exactly no complaints whatsoever. It was a scrappy game but we did everything we needed to do and I’m so proud of them for playing for 80 minutes.”
St. Charles North (9-3-1, 3-0-2) had their chances as well. Koehl and Sophie Pohl were dangerous in the front line. Pohl stabbed at a shot with 14 minutes left that forced Bailey Stengler to make a strong save. Kelly Manski hit a free kick with 8 minutes to play that got past the Saints wall but found Stengler for another save.
But when the North Stars got the ball into the net — with 7 minutes to play — the goal was disallowed for offside.
“I don’t think we played well for 80 minutes,” St. Charles North coach Ruth Vostal said. “I don’t think we necessarily possessed the ball well and we were trying to work through that.”
Vostal said there was another side to the tying goal — the fact that her team was unable to kill off the match, even at 1-0.
“Win, lose or draw, we’ve been working on being mentally tough and I think that’s where we weren’t successful tonight,” Vostal said. “You’ve got to be close out a game. So we’ll learn from it and be in another situation later in the year and we’ll know how to handle it.”
The North Stars head to Burlington, Iowa this weekend for their annual trip to the Tournament of Champions.
“We play different there,” Vostal said. “We play casual. We’ve won the last three years that we’ve been there and beaten some great teams. Hopefully this gives us experience to go and get better.”