Girls soccer: A near-perfect day for Glenbard East

The Glenbard East girls soccer team's final tuneup Saturday before the start of Upstate Eight Valley play this week was darn near perfect.

The Rams dispatched host Addison Trail 6-0 to improve to 6-1 and in the process held the Blazers without a shot. Meanwhile, they put up 27 of their own shots. Two goals in the first four minutes of the contest is all they needed on a windy, blustery afternoon.

But what's perhaps most impressive is that Glenbard East prevailed as easily as it did despite missing six players due to spring break, not to mention it was almost a week since it had a practice.

"I was very proud," Rams coach Kent Overbey said. "It's spring break, we gave them six days off, came in with no practice, so I was happy with the energy. Defensively and in the center of the park, I was super-happy with the way we played, took care of the ball in a stiff wind and limited them to 0 shots."

Overbey added, "It was good to hopefully knock the rust off before Bartlett," the team the Rams play against on Tuesday. They tied the Hawks for the Upstate Eight Valley title a year ago.

Conservatively, Glenbard East kept the ball on Addison Trail's end for about 80 percent of the contest. When you do that, the scoring chances will come in abundance, but sometimes Lady Luck is simply dealing in your favor.

Take the first goal of the afternoon. Senior Mattie Pusateri took a corner kick that dropped right into a scrum in front of Blazers goalkeeper Klaudia Kulikowska. Midfielder Elizabeth Toledo gathered the ball, turned and fired it into the right side of the net.

A minute later, forward Lindsey Novak fired a shot that bounced loudly off the crossbar after a Kulikowska tip. The ball fell right to forward Mimi Camacho, who simply turned and blasted it into the left corner.

Toledo and Camacho each scored a pair, while freshman midfielder Maddie Weltin added one, and senior defender Katie Hansen added another on perhaps the most humorous sequence of the afternoon. She tried several times to set up a penalty kick, but the 20-plus mph wind kept pushing the ball off the spot. When she finally did shoot, she scored, setting the final score.

"That was a little awkward," Hansen said with a laugh. "It started with a great play with Toledo, just holding the ball up, which is how we got the foul. PKs are always hard to defend."

Despite the score Kulikowska was solid, finishing the game with 13 saves, 10 in the second half. But it was a loss that her coach, Sergio Nunez, is happy to put behind him.

"Difficult not to get a shot," said Nunez, whose squad fell to 2-3-1. "We tried to get the ball up to our forwards as much as possible, but we just couldn't keep it. The couple of times that we did, we couldn't capitalize.

"Luckily, it's still early in the season, and we've got work to do to put this puzzle together."