Shorthanded CLA battles but falls

Undermanned Christian Liberty Academy engineered a valiant 80-minute effort against conference opponent Keith Country Day (5-6-0) on Thursday afternoon in Arlington Heights, but the Chargers fell 1-0 to the Lady Cougars.

Because of a variety of injuries, the Chargers (2-9-0, 2-4-0) dressed just 11 players — but coach Dan Ruta could not have been more proud of his club.

“I told the girls afterwards that their effort was something that all of them should be proud of, because I certainly was,” Ruta said. “Because we were missing so many starters today, we had to move and shift players around to positions they usually didn’t play, but none of them skipped a beat, and we played (Keith) about as even as we could for 80 minutes, but just fell a little short in the end.”

Ruta moved one of his top players, Steff Chaires, from her usual perch up top as one of the Chargers strikers, into the middle of the park to run the attack. The co-captain looked as if she had been in that spot all season as she distributed, won balls, defended and helped create a handful of opportunities against the Lady Cougars.

Her teammates benefited from Chaires’ work, including Destiny Kocurek — who had far too much speed for the Lady Cougars to cope with on the outside. In addition,Nicole Leahy provided plenty of energy on the outside, particularly during the first half.

Chargers keeper Shelbi Hernandez pulled a looping ball out of the air from Sarah Kobernat at 12 minutes and needed some help from Danielle Chaires at 22 minutes to clear a dangerous ball.

On three occasions in the first half, the Chargers came close but could not score against Keith keeper Lily Jo Fisher.

The Cougars netted the only goal when freshman striker Kieran Johnson picked up a loose ball from a scrum, and struck through a crowd from 22 yards past Hernandez, who likely didn’t see the shot until the last moment.

“It’s too bad we couldn’t finish any of our first-half chances, but I liked the way we created those chances nonetheless,” said Ruta.

The Chargers’ backline of Brittany Joyce, Christiane Laskowski, Jayna Rowland and Danielle Chaires did well to keep the Lady Cougars from scoring any more.

Kocurek unloaded a well-aimed blast at the near post at 56 minutes that Fisher saved. Chaires nearly connected with Kocurek on a freek ick just outside the 18, but Fisher collected the redirected attempt.

“Hopefully we’ll get a few more of our players back for our regional opener next week in Harvard,” Ruta said. “But if we can play with the type of heart and energy that we did today next week, we will have a great chance of winning our game.”

The Chargers, the No. 3 seed at Harvard, will play the regional host and No. 2 seed next Friday at 7 p.m.