Warriors find scoring touch in SCC victory over Montini

 

 

By Matt Le Cren

With her team dominating the midfield, Wheaton Academy defender Meredith Matson didn’t have much to do during the first half of Monday’s match with Montini.

So the senior went in search of the action and ended up scoring the game-winning goal in what turned out to be an easy 6-0 Suburban Christian Conference victory in Lombard.

Matson’s goal, her second of the season, came with 21:34 left in the opening half. Abby Olson’s corner kick from the left side was headed up into the air by a defender and landed in a crowd of players in front. Matson aggressively pounced on and knocked it home from five yards out.

“I always go up for the corners, try to block the goalkeeper because I’m so tall,” Matson said. “It just kind of bounced around the six and I got it right in the goal.”

Despite controlling 90 percent of the possession, scoring proved to be easier said than done in the opening 20 minutes for the Warriors (6-5-1, 3-1), who had managed just three shots before Matson scored against a packed-in Montini defense.

“We were trying to get so many shots off,” Matson said. “Eventually they just had to go in, so the odds were kind of in our favor for that. We kept telling our forwards to shoot the ball over and over.”

Wheaton Academy did just that, peppering the net with 26 shots. Goalie Kiera Johnston did her best to keep the host Broncos (6-4, 3-2) in the game by making 17 saves, including seven in the first half.

The game remained 1-0 until Wheaton sophomore Kate Lindsay boomed a left-footed shot from 25 yards out past Johnston with 1:19 to go in the half, giving the visitors a little breathing room at the break.

“I think after that first goal we got a lot more confident and then we were able to play our game instead of their game, especially in the second half,” Wheaton Academy midfielder Ali Grant said. “We changed our formation and we came out with a lot more energy and effort, so we were able to put a lot more together.

“We were able to send it through the midfield and send it to the opposite side and get those crosses in, send the crosses from one side to the other to get those goals."

A prime example of that came with 32:36 to play in the second half when Grant sent a great long ball from far out on the right wing that went through the penalty area to Jamie Netzley sneaking behind the defense on the left side. Netzley’s quick finish made it 3-0 and 12 minutes later Grant found the back of the net off an Olson corner kick.

Six different players scored for Wheaton, with the final two tallies coming 51 seconds apart as freshman Britta Cassel fired a 12-yard shot off the hands of Johnston with 2:12 to go and sophomore Shelby Fritz converted a corner kick from Annika Pearson with 1:21 remaining.

Wheaton Academy coach Dave Underwood was pleased to see his club, which has struggled offensively, score three times off corner kicks.

“We’ve scored a fair amount on corner kicks and we emphasis that a lot because we’re struggling to create within the flow of the game,” Underwood said. “We’ve talked about let’s use set pieces and corner kicks to our advantage.”

The first half was a microcosm of how the offense has performed this season: with inconsistent yet slow progress.

“We’re getting there and that’s the thing that we’re looking to do: we’re looking to improve every game out,” Underwood said. “We were a little sloppy in the first half so we made some adjustments in the second half.

“They were putting a lot of people in the box to defend and we wanted to draw them out a little bit, so we talked about that early cross, sending that in, and let’s have a holding midfielder just kind of stay a little deeper. That works. We got a couple of good opportunities on that early ball to the back post.

“I was happy with the way they adjusted at halftime. Our big thing is figuring out ways to create and score goals and you saw that in the first half we were struggling to create and score. Then we were able to adjust in the second half.”

One area where the Warriors haven’t needed any adjustments is on defense, where the back line of Matson, senior Allie Manske, sophomore Abbie Mercaldo and freshman Gabrielle LaMantia has been stellar. Manske and Mercaldo man the outsides while Matson and LaMantia control the middle.

“We knew going into this season that our defense was going to be really strong,” said Matson, a Trinity Christian-signee who is particularly impressed with LaMantia’s play. “We work in practice all the time keeping our defense really tight, making sure no through balls get past us. We’re always marking up really well and our communication is good.”

Wheaton has surrendered 11 goals thus far, with no more than two in any one game. The Warriors allowed the Broncos just three shots and junior goalie Julia McKee had to make just two saves, both on long free kicks.

The Warriors’ six-goal outburst matched a season-high and was just the third time they’ve scored more than three goals.

“I think it gives us a lot more confidence because we’ve had some rough games,” Grant said. “I think it will give us more confidence and get us ready for the harder games that will come, keep us playing together.”

While this is considered a rebuilding year for the Warriors, who have only five seniors, the younger players have shown flashes of great potential even in defeat. All five of Wheaton’s losses have been by one goal and four of those matches were against Class 3A opponents.

“We have a lot of young talent this year which is really good for our program and I think they’re all doing really well on the varsity level,” Grant said. “I think that they’ll be really good for us next year and in the years to come. Our team is going to stay strong for a long time.”