Mundelein’s streak, season come to an end

The Mundelein girls soccer team entered the postseason red-hot on a seven-game winning streak.

The Mustangs tried adding one more match to that impressive roll, but they came up just short in a 1-0 defeat to host Glenbrook North on Tuesday night in the IHSA Class 3A regional semifinal.

“I thought we played well enough,” said Mundelein coach Dave Ekstrom, who coached his last game and is stepping down after coaching coaching since the fall of 1981.

“We just didn’t create enough scoring opportunities. But we still had our best chances to score after Glenbrook North scored. I thought the game could’ve gone either way.”

The Mustangs (14-7-3) had beaten Glenbrook North in the regionals last year at Lake Forest — by the same score, but in three overtimes.

Glenbrook North (18-4-2), which will host Stevenson for the regional title on Friday at 6 p.m., got its goal from Montana Paley in the 55th minute.

Paley was playing her first game after missing the last four matches because of a concussion and connected on a 25-yard shot.

The Spartans were well aware of the Mustangs’ leading scorer — Ashley Begrowicz with 23 goals — and were worried about her offensive potential going into the match.

Begrowicz had some chances.

“Anytime you take away their stud Ashely Begrowicz,” said Glenbrook North coach Paul Vignocchi. “We did a good thing, because (Mundelein) has a very good attacking team. I thought our defense stood up to their attacking.

“We knew Mundelein was very good. They had knocked us out last year in the playoffs. We knew that they were much better than a 14 seed. Mundelein was on a hot streak over the last 2 weeks of the season. We were on a cold streak and we had girls injured.”