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Girls soccer: Burlington Central stuns Barrington in PKs

Burlington Central finally fulfilled one of its dreams.

The Rockets delivered a knockout blow to defending Class 3A state champion Barrington Friday night when they outscored the Fillies 4-3 in a shootout to record a hard-fought 1-0 victory in the opener of the Naperville Invite girls soccer tournament.

"Two years ago (Barrington) beat us 10-3 so we've come a long way against a team and program that we have the utmost respect for," said a proud Jessica Arneson, BC's head coach.

"This was a great game for us to be a part of, and to finally get a win against one of the best teams in the state at 3A says a lot about our players, who needed a challenge like this one to help prepare us for state playoffs later next month."

This 100-minute marathon had a little bit of everything for a big BASA (Barrington Area Soccer Association) youth audience.

The Fillies (7-1-2) were forced to weather the storm at the start of both halves - only to roar back and grab hold of the run of play - while the challenges on most of the 50-50 balls both in the air and on the floor were sharp and quite physical at the same time.

Each club had one goal pulled back by offsides flags, Barrington's coming at 100 minutes when the Barrington faithful thought they had watched the game-winner scored by Ashley Prell.

Both keepers took command of their respective box, each being called into action in order to take potential goals out of the back of their net.

However, when those aforementioned 100 minutes were unable to decide the outcome, this Group F thriller went to shootout.

Once there, the Rockets (9-1-0) were near flawless.

Jordan King and Sydney Pryor made their spot-kick conversions look easy as did Jessica Clouser, whose fourth round finish made it 3-3 after Madi Rosen, Prell and Christine Batliner went in from the spot for the Fillies.

Zoey Kollhoff, who enjoyed a strong night of soccer in the middle of the park for the Rockets, steered her attempt low and in almost the same location all three of her teammates did, making it impossible for Samantha Schmitz to stop.

Erin Rafferty then would stop the Fillies' Tina Teik to start the celebration.

Prell and Teik would be at the heart of a rampant 15-minute attack in the latter half of the second period that put the Rockets under constant pressure, which they did well to withstand.

The Rockets will have little time to recover as they meet Loyola at 10 a.m. Saturday, with the knowledge a victory or draw will advance them into next week's semifinals in Naperville.

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