St. Charles North leaves little doubt in beating Conant
From start to finish, there wasn't much that went wrong for St. Charles North's girls soccer team, a squad that played arguably its best match of the postseason so far.
Conant, meanwhile, was having some difficulties and while not playing terribly, the Cougars weren't quite at the same level as their top-seeded opponents.
That made for a combustible situation in the IHSA Class 3A Schaumburg sectional title game and St. Charles North claimed a 5-0 victory to advance to Tuesday's Barrington supersectional. The North Stars play the winner of today's Barrington vs. Cary-Grove match.
Only eight teams will remain in the Class 3A tournament when St. Charles North takes the field on Tuesday at 7 p.m. The last time the North Stars advanced this far in the postseason was 2004, when they finished runners-up to New Trier.
"We're already excited that we'll get to practice again and we have some team-bonding stuff that we're going to do after practice," St. Charles North senior Sammy Gage said. "We're so excited to have more time together."
After falling behind in its previous two playoffs matches, one of the questions was whether or not the North Stars (21-1-1) would take the lead on Conant (12-6-3). The answer came in the 14th minute when a defensive error presented Leah DeMoss with the ball 30 yards from goal. DeMoss curled the ball into the upper right corner of the net.
"We weren't going to make a bigger deal of it than it was because it was only one goal and (Conant) has come from behind in the tournament," St. Charles North coach Ruth Vostal said. "But we've talked about (DeMoss) taking shots and taking chances. So they were listening to what we had practiced, which was great to see."
The next 15 minutes saw Conant's best spell of attacking pressure and the Cougars nearly equalized twice. First Courtney Raetzman passed to Becky Raimondo who came up the left wing and shot into the side netting.
That chance came at nearly the midpoint of the first half. Six minutes later, Kaitlin Chiero curled a ball just past the upper left corner of the goal.
A further six minutes of play elapsed before the North Stars scored their second goal when Alyssa Peterson fed DeMoss, who netted her second goal of the match. Vostal praised her team's full-field pressure as key to her team's 2-0 halftime lead.
"If you look at both of (DeMoss') goals, she's gone back to the midfield to win those balls and create," Vostal said. "At this point of the season, it doesn't matter who scores the goals or who clears the ball off the line. At some point in the half, if you looked, our forwards were behind our midfielders, and that intensity was creating things for us."
With the score 2-0 at halftime, Conant still had a toehold on the match. A three-goal blitz in seven minutes midway through the second half settled matters.
"I don't know why, but we played our worst game and they played perhaps one of their better games," Conant coach Jason Franco said. "We just had a comedy errors which you can't do against a good team, which is what they are."
Paige Dusek was the catalyst for the North Stars. First she got free on the right wing, cut inside her defender and crossed to Peterson, who tapped into the goal.
One minute later, Kelli Alderman set Dusek loose on a breakaway and Dusek made the score 4-0. Finally, with 18 minutes to play, Alex Gage sent a releasing pass and Dusek again came in past Conant's defense and scored.
"We had a good first half," Dusek said. "Everybody was playing well and keeping their composure. But at halftime, everyone was like, 'We are this good. We can do this. The ball went where we needed it to and all our hard work paid off."