Hilltoppers fall to a "very good team" in LaGrange Park

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By Matt Le Cren

Kelsey Holbert and Ari Kowalski spent their spring break in Georgia helping a group from their church build a house for Habitat for Humanity.

Glenbard West wishes they would have stayed a couple more days.

Holbert scored two goals and assisted on another and Kowalski ruined West’s best scoring chance with a spectacular defensive play to lead host Lyons to a 4-0 victory over the Hilltoppers in a West Suburban Conference Silver Division opener in LaGrange.

“There’s no way for us to make any excuses,” Glenbard West coach Maciek Kusmierz said. “We lost to the better team today. The only chance we had against that team was we knew we had to defend well and we knew that they will limit us to a few opportunities on goal.

“I told the girls that we normally get at least a dozen, if not more, good chances to score. This game we got only three or four and we had to make the best of it. We were not able to take advantage of that, but in the end, we played a very good team.”

LT is a team that has yet to play with all of its weapons due mostly to injuries. But the value of Holbert and Kowalski was evident on Saturday, when the Lions (4-1, 1-0) suffered their first loss of the season, 2-0 to Lincoln-Way North. Not only was LT without Holbert and Kowalski, but Miami of Ohio-bound defender Sarah Mazur received a red card in the seventh minute, forcing the Lions to play with 10 players the rest of the match.

But all was well against the Hilltoppers, who fought hard to keep LT in check and kept the hosts off the scoreboard until 8:14 remained in the first half. That’s when Holbert sent a pass up the middle of the box to senior Coco Corrigan, who sent an eight-yard shot past West goalie Michelle Vonachen.

“We did [miss Holbert],” Corrigan said. “She is just a vital player to us. She really controls the field and sets up good scoring opportunities for herself and the rest of the team. Kelsey has a lot of confidence on the ball so she helps me with that and helps me be a better player.”

The Lions broke the game open by scoring three times in a 12-minute span in the second half. Freshman forward Emily Lange made it 2-0 when she scored her first career goal on a well-struck 18-yarder at the 36:35 mark. Lange was playing just her second game of the season as she had missed the last three with an injury.

Holbert then put the game out of reach by striking twice in 33 seconds. The first was a 23-yard rocket that was too hot for Vonachen to handle and the second was an 18-yard blast into the upper left corner of the net.

“We did a fairly decent job on [Holbert] in the first half,” Kusmierz said. “We forced her to distribute the ball and then in the second half, unfortunately for us, she had a couple of amazing shots.

“As long as we could defend, we could keep the game close and then in the second half the game just broke open and we end up losing.”

The Hilltoppers (2-4-2, 0-1) received solid defensive play from seniors Haverly Snyder and Carla Loury, sophomore McKinzie Powers and freshman Alyssa Cantore, but they were eventually worn down by LT’s superior firepower and Holbert’s first goal seemed to take the wind out of their sails.

“I think definitely after the third goal, not that they weren’t trying, but the mentality changed for them,” Corrigan said. “Being up 2-0 is a dangerous spot but after we get the third goal we’re more comfortable.”

Holbert, who now has five goals, hadn’t played or trained in 11 days but the layoff and her chronically sore knee didn’t seem to slow her down.

“It’s good to be back,” Holbert said. “I hate not playing. I was I was miss-hitting [her shots] in the first half. It’s this field, I haven’t played on it yet with my knee, but I figured things out in the second half.

“My therapist didn’t have me do anything over spring break. I think that helped. It feels pretty good now. It still has to be iced and [I need to be] doing the therapy.”

“Honestly, the rest probably helped her,” Lyons coach Bill Lanspeary said. “She just goes hard all the time, trains hard and the rest is a good thing as this point.”

Maggie Orlowski made two saves and her backup, freshman Molly Henderson, who played the final 17 minutes, made one to share the shutout, the fourth for the Lions.

But the two best saves were made by LT defenders. The first came with the game still scoreless, when 14 minutes in Orlowski was beaten by a shot from Kaitlin Moore.

The ball was headed wide of the left post but Glenbard West’s Katie Watt got to it and was about to fire it into the empty net when Kowalski slide-tackled it away from her and over the left end line.

“I just read it,” Kowalski said. “Someone always has to be covering the keeper if she steps out so I took that position on that play.”

Kowalski, a sophomore, started at left fullback as a freshman but has been playing in the middle this spring because standout sweeper Elise Gordon has been nursing a strained hamstring. Gordon saw her first action against Lincoln-Way North, playing the first 30 minutes, and played the first half against the Hilltoppers, so Kowalski has filled a vital need.

“[Kowalski] is such a smart player,” Lanspeary said. “She usually puts herself in the right spot, plays pretty simple, reads the game unbelievably well and makes tremendous plays for us.”

Emma Meyering also made a great defensive play for the Lions with 29:00 remaining in the second half. A corner kick from Lauren Davis was headed on frame out of a crowd by a West player but Meyering headed the ball over the crossbar.

Then Henderson preserved the shutout with 3:00 to go when she faced Davis 1-on-1 and batted the West senior’s point-black shot over the end line.