Girls soccer: Barrington's shutout string continues vs. Lake Zurich in sectional final
After successfully completing a 132-mile round trip from its home base to Machesney Park Tuesday where their shutout win over Huntley at Harlem High School earned them a ticket to their first sectional final since 2015, Lake Zurich coach Mike Castronova had no complaints a making another lengthy trek Friday.
His Bears club sought the program's first sectional title since 2004.
"It was good," Castronova said of their journey back to Clyde Peterson Stadium. "You get used to these (long) trips this time of year."
Lake Zurich's opponent, Barrington, has also been used to their share of long postseason travels over the years as they had made a 121 mile round-trip from their campus Tuesday in a shutout win over McHenry, their third straight in state tournament play this spring.
Despite a valiant effort from the Bears, the Fillies were able to gain game control in the early going, allowing them to secure an additional stop to their postseason itinerary with its fourth consecutive shutout, a 3-0 victory.
The win earned them a home Class 3A supersectional date Tuesday evening at Frederick/Motor Werks Auto Group Field versus the winner of Saturday afternoon's West Chicago sectional final between No. 1 St. Charles East (20-3) and No. 2 St. Charles North (16-3-2).
"Honestly, it wasn't one of our better games and I think if you ask our girls we can play better. But we did enough to get through. I'm happy about that," Barrington coach Ryan Stengren said.
In claiming the program's 14th straight sectional crown and 18th in school history (which have come since the year 2000), Barrington (21-0-2) got on the board in the game's fifth minute. Junior Maddy Ziebarth took a corner kick from senior Kate Lubinsky and drove it past Lake Zurich sophomore netminder Erin Bohn (8 saves) for a 1-0 lead.
Ziebarth's junior teammate Kaitlyn Taylor provided the Fillies with an extra space cushion. She took a feed and successfully converted it into a 2-0 advantage in the 39th minute just before half.
A Sarah Sarnowski score in the 63rd minute would provide the final score of the evening.
Ziebarth spoke of her squadmates' objective heading into the match.
"We're just trying to start the game off strong and do whatever we can do to get (the ball) in the goal right away," Ziebarth said. "We're definitely always trying to hustle around the field and doing what we can do to get the ball back."
Castronova spoke proudly of his team's performance this season as they finished 18-4-2.
"Today, it didn't happen for us," Castronova said. "We played a great team (in Barrington). The girls put in the work all season. I thought we had a fantastic season. Regional champs. Sectional finalists. These girls left everything on the field and I am entirely proud of them."
For Stengren, the challenge of looking forward to the round of eight gives him the view of looking at one of his team's strengths - penalty kicks.
"One of our preparations (this week in practice) was working on trying to go in different directions and our goalies are doing a real good job on guessing (on them)," Stengren said.