Porters' fast start comes up empty in loss to DG South
By Matt Le Cren

 

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Not many teams are good enough to spend nearly all of 10 consecutive minutes putting pressure on Downers Grove South’s defense, but that’s exactly what Lockport did at the outset of Thursday night’s match in Downers Grove.

The contest resembled a ping-pong match as the host Mustangs tried and failed to clear the ball out of their own penalty area while Lockport appeared on the verge of scoring at least one goal.

But the Porters were unable to find the back of the net and Downers South regrouped, scored twice in a five-minute span and went on to a 2-0 victory.

“I feel like we started off really slow,” Downers South forward Sarrah Ludwig said. “We didn’t have the energy we needed to. They came out really hard on us, but after the first 10 minutes or so we picked it up.

“We were like, ‘ok, we really need to start playing together.’ We started shooting more. We just started connecting more as a team.”

Ludwig teamed with senior midfielder Jessica Bronke to score the first goal for the Mustangs (3-0-1) with 16:09 left in the first half. Bronke tossed a long throw-in from the right side to the near post, where Ludwig used the back of her head to flick the ball past Lockport goalie Alyssa DeYoung.

The goal may have looked fluky but headers like that are Ludwig’s bread and butter.

“Any time Sarrah’s involved I wouldn’t call it a fluke goal,” Lockport coach Todd Elkei said. “She’s very good in the air and that’s something [Downers South coach] Barry [Jacobson] stresses with them. They get the ball in the air and she goes up high and aggressive. She’s a tough kid.”

The goal was the fifth of the season for Ludwig. No other Mustang has more than two thus far.

“I honestly thought the ball was out of bounds when I hit that and then I turned around and it was in the goal,” Ludwig said. “It surprised me.”

The goal seemed to energize the Mustangs, who continued to pepper the Lockport net. DeYoung, who finished with three saves, deflected a 22-yard free kick from Bronke at the 13:40 mark and seconds later a long shot by Nicole Janowiak sailed wide.

Sophomore forward Tess Grannan then made a contested run into the left side of the box before shooting into the side of the goal. She had much better success from the same spot a minute later, sending a cross in tight to the far post, where sophomore Emily Wauer finished from four yards out, making it 2-0 at the 11:02 mark.

“It was a driven cross and they went hard into the box and finished it and that’s kind of what we’re talking about with our team,” Elkei said. “We’re getting the ball across but we’re not going hard to that ball. It’s one thing if you’re not creating chances and opportunities and losing. But we’re creating chances so eventually we’ll execute. We’ll keep working hard and find the answers.”

The loss was the second straight for the Porters (1-2), who fell 2-1 to Class 1A power Manteno on Monday despite dominating much of the match.

“We were in the box 27 times and finished once and they were in the box three times and scored twice,” Elkei noted.

Lockport senior Gina Collesano, who took four of her team’s 11 shots, had a 27-yard shot saved by Downers South goalie Cassidy Hermann just 30 seconds into the game.

“We had the intensity the first 15 minutes strong,” Collesano said. “We thought we were going to take the game but we just couldn’t connect any shots and they just had two lucky shots.

“I think we just need to communicate more up top. We had some good through balls but we just couldn’t finish it.”

Finishing against the top clubs is something the Porters will need to do if they hope to improve on last year’s breakthrough 13-6 season. The team has high expectations.

“We’re expecting to go Downstate so we’re going to be pushing every practice and every game,” Collesano said. “We’ve brought the intensity up and we’re playing hard.”

Elkei is confident his squad will continue to improve. They outshot the Mustangs 11-10 despite playing without top forward Lexi Cozzi, midfielder Alyssa Clarida and defender Brynn Feeley.

“Defensively I thought we played very well,” Elkei said. “The second half I thought it was like the first 10 minutes of the first half. I thought we controlled the play, we had more chances and they were more of a counter game. But that creativity and desire in the last quarter of the field were an issue.

“We’re competing with these teams. We’re in every game we’re playing.”

Save for Tuesday’s 1-1 tie with Lincoln-Way North, Downers South has won every game it has played. The Mustangs are doing it a little differently than they did last year when they relied on big scorers like Keri Kujawa and Stephanie Zurales. Kujawa graduated and is playing at Illinois State, while Zurales, who led the team in scoring last year as a freshman, is playing club soccer.

But the team still has plenty of solid weapons, including three Division I players in Ludwig (Valparaiso), Bronke (Miami of Ohio) and Flo Beshiri (Creighton).

“It’s more spread out,” Ludwig said. “We don’t have 20- or 30-goal scorers on the field but we have people who can put the ball in the net when we need to.

“I think this was one of our best offensive games because we had all the runs up top going and we were playing the ball through perfectly.”

Aside from losing Janowiak to an injury, Jacobson was pleased with the victory.

“This is a big win for us,” Jacobson said. “We’re going to have to manufacture goals more this year. It kind of came easy for us at times last year.

“We lost some scoring but we’re picking it up with other kids. Ludwig’s having a great start, Tess has given us a spark we didn’t expect and hopefully Wauer will start putting some balls in the net. She’s been close.”

As usual, the Mustangs were solid defensively, especially in the early going against Lockport’s initial surge, as senior Jess Pikul and sophomore Lori Niehaus and Haley Holz played well in front of Hermann, a senior in her first season of playing high school soccer.

“She’s a volleyball player,” Jacobson said of Hermann, who made six saves. “This is the first year she’s played soccer. She’s worked really hard with [assistant] coach [Bob] Topor and in these conditions tonight I thought she did a great job. I was so proud of her.”

Ludwig, one of seven seniors who have played at least three years on the varsity, said the Mustangs are determined to extend their winning streak in conference games which dates to 2001 as well as win a regional championship for the first time in their careers.

“I think we’re starting off strong,” Ludwig said. “I feel like we have a lot of potential. I think we have a lot of work to do but we have a really young team, but then we have some seniors out there that really want to push it this season and get as far as we can. We need to lead the team and get the younger girls going.”