Girls soccer: St. Charles North shuts out St. Charles East
Suddenly surging St. Charles North is playing its best soccer of the early season at the moment while crosstown rival St. Charles East is dealing with its first taste of on-field adversity.
Those divergent trends collided, and continued on Tuesday, when host St. Charles North got a goal in each half and claimed a 2-0 victory in this latest renewal of the battle of St. Charles' high school girls soccer teams.
After solid play by both teams in the first half, St. Charles North (9-2, 2-0 Upstate Eight River) opened the scoring with 13 minutes left before halftime. From a Claire Barresi throw-in on the left wing, Gia Wahlberg headed the ball toward goal. A St. Charles East defender attempted to clear, but the ball ended in the back of the Saints' net.
"I'm not sure if it would have gone in on its own, I wasn't at the right angle to be able to tell you that," Wahlberg said. "But the fact that they put their heads down and we put our heads up, that was the difference.
While St. Charles North weathered some early St. Charles East pressure, the North Stars were dangerous themselves, as when Claire Barresi forced a save from Saints keeper Alison Chesterfield after 24 minutes and when Hailey Rydberg had a shot cleared five minutes later.
"We told the girls that the game came down to inches, one way or the other, and thankfully, we ended up on the right side of it," St. Charles North coach Brian Harks said.
Morgan Kull headed wide late in the half for the Saints.
"I'm not saying it would have been a different game if they'd come back after that (first) goal, but it was definitely a big boost," Wahlberg said.
Stung by the goal, St. Charles East (9-2, 1-1) regrouped at halftime and came out aggressively in the second half. Within the opening 10 minutes, Megan O'Neal and Kull hit the North Stars' crossbar.
"It's no secret that when we play the ball on the ground and actually try to play soccer, we're a good team," St. Charles East coach Paul Jennison said. "When we get bogged down in a dogfight and kick the ball in the air, we're very, very average - and our girls know that."
But within a minute of Kull's crossbar-hitting strike, Elli Wahlberg hit a 25-yard rocket to the top of the Saints' net and the hosts doubled their lead.
"When our team could have maybe gotten down on ourselves or thrown in the towel or gotten down on ourselves, we did a great job of worrying about the next play and fighting back and keeping our composure," Harks said.
After a 9-0 start, St. Charles East has suffered back-to-back losses, and after not allowing a goal through those victories, the Saints have allowed 4 goals without scoring themselves in losses to Naperville North and St. Charles North.
"Honestly, our first nine games of the season, if we tripped over the ball, it went in the back of the net," Jennison said. "Today just wasn't our day for it to go. The first was maybe a bit fortuitous of a strike, but the second was a worthy strike, and you can't save them."
Next for the Saints is a trip to the Naperville Invitational, where they face Loyola and Palatine in group play, starting with Friday's match with Loyola at Barrington.
"As a group, we've got to stop teams transitioning on us quickly," Jennison said. "In the last two games, we haven't stopped the quick release against us. That's on me to think of a practice plan and a game plan for us to bounce back against Loyola."
St. Charles North entered the match on strong note after it finished its Pepsico Showdown matches with a Saturday victory over New Trier.
"It was the same mindset in both games," Gia Wahlberg said. "We knew what we needed to do and we got the result that we wanted."
Slowly and steadily, the North Stars are building momentum as they take the rest of the week off before facing Geneva at home on Monday.
"New players are starting to come out with goals and assists and they're stepping up as leaders," Gia Wahlberg said. "That's what's different in this middle part of the season is that everyone's starting to become comfortable, and we're going to keep raising the bar, which is good."