Libertyville slips up against Lake Forest

Cold. Rain. Sleet.

It seemed like Libertyville’s girls soccer players couldn’t find their footing.

Lake Forest overcame Tuesday’s rough weather conditions a little better, defeating the Wildcats 2-0 in a North Suburban Conference Lake Division match.

“I believe we got outplayed by Lake Forest,” Libertyville coach Scott Schinto said. “Hats off to the Lake Forest kids. They did a nice job.”

The Wildcats had a couple of good chances but were denied by the Scouts keeper Liz Clark, who twice made kick saves. She also thwarted a couple of breakaways.

“What I see with any kind of soccer in high school is, if you make good on your opportunities, then the personality of the game changes,” Schinto said. “We let teams hang around, hang around and hang around. We have a minor mental mistake and other teams capitalize on it. When we see a mental mistake from a team that we’re playing, we don’t capitalize.”

Libertyville (5-3, 1-2) and Lake Forest (4-1-5, 1-0-3) played a scoreless opening half. But about midway through the second half, the Scouts scored twice in a seven-minute span.

“We had done a lot of good things and were moving the ball early on all over the place, and then we had breakdowns,” Schinto said. “We have to fix those. Our goal was to defend corners better. We did that until the second half. We were winning balls in the air. But then we get sloppy, we break down, and that’s when we get scored on.”

Lake Forest’s Sheridan Weiss scored the first goal off an assist from Paige Bourne in the 61st minute. Gabby Perino knocked in a header off Bourne’s corner kick seven minutes later.

“Honestly, I thought we were kind of unlucky,” Libertyville defender Jordan Bauer said. “Things got jumbled up in there (on the first goal). It opened up our eyes a little bit. We wanted to keep pushing and not let one goal put us down.”

As the game wore on, the turf became more soaked and the air got colder.

“It was absolutely horrible,” Lake Forest coach Ty Stuckslager said. “It’s not easy to deal with it. Some were freezing out there. Both teams still came out to play. It’s tough for anyone on the bench to warm up or the players to stay warm. It’s just not conducive.”