Bison come back vs. Lake Park to stay unbeaten
By Matt LeCren

Neither Buffalo Grove nor Lake Park had surrendered a goal while combining to win their first five matches this spring, so it was going to be interesting to see how each squad responded when their respective nets were dented for the first time.

The two unbeatens met Saturday in the opening game of Lake Park’s Lancer Invitational and it was the host Lancers who drew first blood when Megan Lindbert scored off a corner kick from Jillian Kent in the 16th minute.

But Buffalo Grove immediately rose to the challenge, getting the equalizer a minute later en route to a 2-1 victory at Olympic Park in Schaumburg.

“We hadn’t given up a goal so it was different,” Buffalo Grove sophomore Sara Busse said. “But we knew we had to keep passing and get one back and we did.”

Busse set up the tying goal for the Bison (4-0) by making a nice move down the left side and crossing to junior Kelli Zickert for a quick strike.

“I got a ball down the line and I knew I didn’t have an angle to shoot it, so I crossed it and Kelli put one in,” Busse said.

It was Zickert’s sixth goal of the season for the prolific Bison, who have outscored their opponents 14-1.

“Our defense played a great game and they got it to the forwards and then we were able to work off the ball,” Zickert said. “So when Colleen [Zickert] got the ball, she turned and found Busse and Busse found me and it went in the net.”

The Bison are putting the ball in the net with regularity and it is not just one or two people scoring. Buffalo Grove had five different players score in a 5-0 win over Hersey on Thursday. If not for some great pressure defense by Lake Park, the Bison could have recorded another blowout win.

“I think we made a lot more connections in the second half than in the first,” Buffalo Grove coach Pat Dudle said. “Lake Park plays really high pressure, they’re very aggressive and they gave us a handful today.

“They’re a lot bigger than us. They’re really physical and we had to adjust to that, but we played a better second half.”

The Bison dominated possession by using short passes and coordinated movement off the ball to create scoring chances. They launched 25 shots toward Lake Park goalie Rebecca Thorne, but a dozen shots missed high or wide by a foot or less and Thorne made seven saves.

In fact, Lake Park (2-1) reacted just as well to being scored on for the first time as Buffalo Grove did. Though the Lancers mustered only three shots and spent the majority of the contest chasing the ball, they hung tough and didn’t give up the go-ahead goal until the 56th minute.

That’s when Colleen Zickert, Kelli’s twin sister, Colleen, fed a perfect cross from the right corner in front to junior Skyler Groth, who fired a one-timer from point-blank range at Thorne, who dove and got both hands on the ball, only to see it trickle across the goal line.

“We just really needed to put the ball into the net and that second goal was perfect,” Kelli Zickert said.

The Zickert sisters were in the thick of the action throughout, often finding each other with passes or setting up teammates like Groth, Jessica Kovach, Allie Ingham and Megan Gardner with pinpoint through balls.

“We’ve been well-balanced but the Zickerts are an enormous part of our production,” Dudle noted.

The offensive fireworks may have surprised some, but not Kelli Zickert, who said the team has numerous scoring options

“It’s everybody,” she said. “I think the short, quick passes really help and we know how to move off each other really well. We work well together and we know we’re going to find each other and we talk. It makes it pretty easy.”

But the Lancers didn’t make it too easy as they prevented the Bison from scoring any insurance goals. The two-goal output was Buffalo Grove’s lowest of the season.

“The girls played really hard out there today,” Lake Park coach Chris Fruehling said. [The Bison] have a tremendous off-the-ball movement on their end and they had very good touches and it makes them very dangerous. We did the best that we could to try to hold them off as long as we could, but that just gives us something to work harder towards.

“You have to give [the Bison] credit. They are a very experienced, very seasoned team. They’re able to stay composed and continue the play.”

The Lancers suffered a blow when Lindbert, a senior midfielder and tri-captain, walked off in the 65th minute after being shaken up in a collision in the Lake Park penalty area and did not return. Fruehling said she will be observed by the training staff for possible concussion symptoms.

After outscoring their first two opponents 6-0, the stiff challenge was a good test for the Lancers’ defense, which received solid efforts from Lauren Bolnius and Casey Harris, among others.

“It was a great game out there,” Fruehling said. “It was a great opportunity for us in terms of a measuring stick, because BG is so good, of really looking to see what areas we’re doing well and what areas we need to work on.”

The tournament continues on Tuesday with Lake Park taking on Batavia at 10 a.m. and Buffalo Grove facing Glenbard South at noon. The round-robin tournament concludes Thursday with Lake Park playing Glenbard South at 10 a.m. and Buffalo Grove going up against Batavia at noon. All games will be at Olympic Park.