Spartans suffer first loss in a shootout at Rosary
By Darryl Mellema

There haven't been many St. Francis girls’ soccer losses in the past two seasons. And since April 14, 2012, there haven't been any Spartans' losses.

Until Saturday, that is – when Suburban Christian Conference opponent Rosary emerged with a 1-0 win on penalty kicks to claim the SCC title and end St. Francis' win streak at 23 matches – which is tied for the 12th longest winning streak in IHSA history.

St. Francis won its last 14 matches in the 2012 season – which ended with the team lifting the Class 2A championship. This year, the Spartans stood 14-0 entering Saturday's match, which was the completion of a match begun on May 3.

That match had initially been dominated by St. Francis, but two lightning delays led to the match being halted with 32:17 left in the second half. Conference rules dictated that the match resume where it was halted.

But in the interim, Glenbard South's field became unavailable to St. Francis, which forced the match to Rosary, where the hosts wore their road uniforms and the Spartans wore their home white shirts.

“I felt it was like one of those 'Seinfeld' episodes where they were talking about 'Bizarro Jerry,'” Winslow said. “It was supposed to be a home game for us and we start at Glenbard South and we end up here. We worry about where the wind's coming out of and it ends up blowing across the field. It was all just a little surreal.”

The brevity of the resumed match hurt both team's chances for a victory in regulation play. Early attacks went Rosary's way and by the time St. Francis rallied, there were less than 20 minutes to play.

“In the first 10 minutes, I thought we looked flat, and they played with pretty good energy,” Winslow said. “After that, once we did some personnel adjustments, we were in on them constantly. We had a couple where we didn't put the final piece on it. That's all.”

St. Francis began stringing passes together late in the half, including a move that involved Anna Vonderhaar, Kaity Bucaro and Corky Hart in the final two minutes of the second half. Rosary keeper Lauren Frasca moved strongly to collect the ball.

After a first half played mostly in the midfield, St. Francis moved swiftly to attack in the second overtime. And in the final two minutes before the penalty kick shootout, the Spartans nearly won the match. Taylor Bucaro sent a high ball into the penalty area that Frasca punched to the top of the penalty area.

Vonderhaar got the ball shortly after and hit a shot that Fresca saved for a corner kick. From that kick, Vonderhaar cracked a shot off the crossbar.

“You could see us in the second half of what was the second half of the restarted game, that we started to string together balls and get balls through,” Winslow said. “But we couldn't get that final toe on the shot. We forced (Frasca) to come out and make some stops – and (Frasca’s) a very good goalkeeper. I know, she plays for me 10 months of the year.”

In the shootout, Rosary made four of its five kicks to win the match. Kaity Bucaro and Taylor Bucaro made their penalty kicks as did Taylor Van Thournout. And Jenna DiTusa saved one of the Royals' penalty kicks – but Rosary claimed the shootout 4-2.

“We haven't done anything consistently with PK's,” Winslow said. “Part of that is that, where we practice, there's no goals. It's just an empty field. We'll start doing some stuff to work with that as we go to the playoffs now.”

Despite the lack of work on shootouts, Winslow wasn't entirely displeased to have the team experience one on Saturday.

“I told (Assistant coach Fran McMahon) on Thursday that the best thing for us in this game would be to go to PK's,” Winslow said. “You want to get in and see 'how does (DiTusa) look and how do our shooters look.' It gives me an idea of what we do as shooters and then we'll get a little practice in on it and clean that up a little, so to speak.”

One of the standing adages about shootouts is that if the keeper can make one save, she has put her team in great shape – and DiTusa accomplished that against Rosary.

“She did great,” Winslow said. “She made one save and that's her job. And she guessed right on one other too and just missed it.”

Over the course of the 42 minutes played on Saturday, Winslow said he wished for a better start, because the Spartans dominated the later exchanges between the teams.

“We've got to play with more energy early,” St. Francis coach Jim Winslow said. “That's been an issue with us at times. If we've had one thing I've not been happy with this season, it's been that we've been flat early in some games.”

Winslow said his initial hope had been to replay the Rosary contest in its entirety as the match was for the conference title. But he said he thought SCC rules meant only the unplayed portion of the match could be contested.

“That's my understanding,” Winslow said. “To me, if you've got to replay the game, you've got to replay the whole game. But it doesn't change anything. We played how many minutes of scoreless soccer? You end up with zeroes until you end up in PK's.”

Through the match, St. Francis got strong wing play from Brittany Douglass, who frequently got around the corner before whipping in a cross.

“She played very well Thursday night (1-0 win vs. Wheaton Academy) and she was doing some good stuff today,” Winslow said. “I had to keep taking her out because she was tightening up, almost like a cramp. It's another thing with this goofy game today. You take someone out for 5 minutes and you look up and the game is almost over.”

Overall, Winslow said his substitution pattern was affected, though he tried for it not to be that way.
“I tried to use players the way I would normally use them,” he said. “You're trying to squeeze these girls into what ended up being a 42:17 game. I got to see some other kids play and they got to play in a game where there were some nerves, which we really haven't had all season.”

Kaity Bucaro was also influential for the Spartans.

“She was good today, but she was fantastic against Wheaton Academy,” Winslow said. “She's had a great season. Taylor (Bucaro), as the season's gone on, has gotten better and better. Give (Rosary) some credit, I thought they did a good job of getting some pressure on Taylor.”

St. Francis is the No. 2 seed in the Class 2A Riverside-Brookfield Sectional and opens play on Tuesday against No. 15 seed Kennedy at Chicago Solorio Academy.

“If this is the one loss of the season, and realistically, this can be the only loss going forward, then I'm fine with it,” Winslow said. “Our goal was to be get better and to be playing better as we got to the end of the season. We played exceedingly well on Thursday and at times today, under the conditions and having to play somewhere else, we started to play much, much better.”