Girls soccer: St. Charles East wins championship at Huntley
St. Charles East's combination of a prolific offense and a tenacious defense earned the Saints a 6-0 win over Jacobs in the Huntley Soccer Invitational title game Saturday.
In the first eight matches of the season, St. Charles East has scored 47 goals while giving up only three.
Saturday's win was the Saints' fifth shutout of the 2019 campaign.
"We have three returnees (on defense) from last year and one of them, Alondra Carranza, has been awesome for us," St. Charles East coach Vince DiNuzzo said of his back line.
Defender Ashley DiOrio said the team's opening day loss to Fremd was an incentive to prevent opponents from scoring.
"We lost our first game, 1-0 and we took that personally,' said DiOrio. "Also, a lot of credit goes to (goalkeeper) Grace (Griffin). This is her fourth year in the nets."
"We had a good game plan in the first half and were doing well. East has a really good defense but then we weren't playing the right ball to connect very well," said Jacobs coach Stephanie Schuck. "We were holding it too long and they can come out and take it. They are a very strong team, you cannot take that away from them."
It took the Saints 15 minutes to score their first goal and they led only by two at the half. St. Charles East (7-1) then exploded for three goals during a four-minute span in the second half to put the game away.
Saturday's match was the second meeting in five days between the two teams. St. Charles East beat Jacobs (3-4-1) 9-0 on Monday.
"They played differently than they played on Monday - they put five in the back probably because of the nine goals we scored. That took a little bit of time to break down but I thought our girls did a great job in the second half," said DiNuzzo. "We couldn't finish as many as we would like in the first half."
"We had more energy in the second half and focused more on passing in the middle. In the first half we were all over the place," said Kayla Villa, who scored two goals.
Megan Stout started the rally in the 60th minute. The sophomore got behind Jacob defenders and from 15 yards out, kicked the ball in from the right side. Golden Eagles keeper Alicia Kandall attempted to catch the ball, but it bounced off her hands into the net.
"We were happy with how things were going at halftime. Once East got the next one it just kind of deflated them a little bit," said Schuck. "That's the main focus that we are trying to work on - the mental side of things."
Three minutes later, Villa scored her second goal of the day, on a boot in front of the net.
"I took it on the dribble and beat their player for the shot," Villa said.
Less than a minute later, Gabrielle McCaslin found the back of the net to put the Saints up 5-0.
Hannah Miller scored the final goal, a 35-yard chip shot, in the 72nd minute.
"Alicia is our JV goalie. We moved her up because our varsity goalie is actually out of town," Schuck said. "It's hard when you have that consistency and then you break it."
Villa put St. Charles East on the board at the 20:16 mark in the first period on a kick from just outside the left corner of the goal box.
Emma Blankenship scored for the Saints during the 23rd minute on a header from a corner kick.