Dukes open the season with a win over Benet
By Matt Le Cren


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Dead balls can be killers.

Benet found that out the hard way Friday as York senior defender Angela Guerino scored twice on booming free kicks and the host Dukes held on for a 2-1 victory in their season opener in Elmhurst.

It was the first two-goal game of Guerino’s varsity career and got what figures to be the most anticipated season in York history off to a good start.

Guerino’s first strike came just 43 seconds into the match when she rifled a 36-yard free kick from the middle of the field into the upper left corner of the net. She did it again at the 6:43 mark of the first half, lofting a 35-yarder from the left wing into the upper right corner of the net.

Benet goalie Christina Stopko leaped and got a hand on the second shot but was unable to stop it.

“Coach [Chris Halupka] has always had me take long kicks,” Guerino said. “I’ve always taken goal kicks so whenever [free kicks are] far outside, he always has me take them.

“Coach was just practicing with us for free kicks, so we’ve been practicing them really hard and that’s probably why [I had success]. Or maybe it was luck.”

Luck had very little to do with it. Stopko, a sophomore in her first year as Benet’s starting goalie, thought she could have stopped the second goal but had to applaud the first one.

“Christina is a sophomore goalie,” Benet coach Bob Gros said. “She’s been working hard at it. Obviously she’s having some growing pains in that area but the rest of the game I thought she managed exceptionally well.

“The second [goal] I told Christina...we’ve got to get that one. The first one, world class.”

Stopko was aware that York (1-0) has a high-powered offense and she was up to the task, making seven saves, but the dead balls proved deadly.

“My coach told me that they were really good so I was expecting the worst and obviously they deserved [the win],” Stopko said. “They put [the kicks] up in the corners.

“[The first goal] was really good. I’ve got to give her credit for that one. I do [feel like I should have had the second one]. What happened was it was more of a floater and it came down and I hit it and I didn’t hit it hard enough.”

The Dukes continued to attack hard even with the 2-0 cushion, but they couldn’t extend the lead any further, though it wasn’t for lack of trying. Courtney McHugh hit the crossbar with a corner kick and an 18-yard shot by Alyssa Kovatchis clanged off the metal. Stopko also made punch saves on hard shots by McHugh and Bryce Banuelos.

Guerino received kudos from her teammates afterward for being the team’s unlikely leading scorer, something that is bound to change soon what with Division I senior forwards McHugh and Christina Ordonez on the prowl.

“Hopefully the forwards will start putting them in the net,” Guerino quipped.

It figures to be only a matter of time before they do. Ordonez, a four-year starter who is headed to Michigan, is the school’s all-time leading scorer with 81 goals, while the Wisconsin-bound McHugh is a big addition after playing club soccer last spring. Not many teams can boast a pair of Big Ten scorers up front, so the Dukes are confident they can replicate their 2011 success, which was the best in school history with a 21-5-1 record and their first sectional championship.

“We’re all really happy that Courtney came back,” Guerino said. “Coach has high expectations for us. He’s not going to compare this team to last year’s team because we’re a new team, but we’re going to come out strong, so hopefully we’ll go just as far as we did last year and even farther.”

But one big difference is that York will be a marked team and get everyone’s best effort.

“Once you have a season that’s successful everybody starts gunning for you and that will be the case,” Halupka said. “We talked about it before the season. The expectation is high, but we’re a new team and we have to earn our own respect, we have to make our own luck. We try to have that mental toughness and no matter who we play, we’re going to step on the field and play the way that we need to play to win.”

Ordonez and McHugh, who along with senior defender Abby Wilkins are the team’s tri-captains, will key that effort.

“Those two girls have known each other since they were about seven years old. They have a great chemistry together,” Halupka said. “I think Courtney provides a huge amount of leadership to our team. I think Christina does as well. I think having Courtney back is a huge asset for our team [with] her speed, her height, her ability to take players on. She makes another weapon up front.”

McHugh created more chances against the Redwings, while the closely marked Ordonez managed to get only one shot off, but Ordonez won’t sweat those kinds of details.

“That’s the best part about Christina is it’s not about her,” Halupka said. “She is about the team. She really does dedicate herself. She is a true leader and the stuff that she does on the field is fun to watch.”

Despite playing without senior defender Rachel Lovely, a key distributor who was on a college visit to High Point, the Division I school in North Carolina she will play for next year, the Redwings proved to be fun to watch as well.

The visitors arguably outplayed the Dukes in the second half and had just as many shots (13) as the hosts. Senior forward Catherine Caniglia cut the gap to 2-1 with 22:27 left when she tapped in a cross from junior Meaghan O’Hara.

O’Hara did most of the work on the play, running around Guerino on the left side of the penalty area before rolling the cross through the crease to Caniglia on the far post.

“On their goal we made a mistake,” Halupka said. “I still think that we could have done better on that play. There wasn’t enough organization, but those are mistakes that we want to make because we want to figure out how to fix them and you’d rather make them at the beginning of the season than at the end.

“In the end, I give my credit to my girls. They stuck together and did what they needed to do to win.”

Despite watching his team’s season-opening three-game winning streak snapped, Gros was happy with what he saw.

“It was a good soccer game. It was exciting, well-played and I think we played well,” Gros said. “We made a little change in the second half and we were putting it to them. We really had a lot of good opportunities. I just thought there was some tremendous effort on both sides and that’s what made it a fun game.”

Caniglia, a Miami of Ohio recruit who is still recovering from an injury, and St. Louis signee Jamei Borges, a senior midfielder, stood out to Gros.

“I thought Jamei did an outstanding job,” Gros said. “I think we’ve got a team with above-average speed. We’re still learning how to make the combination between movement and runs. You can see at times that we do get behind defenses, even a good defense like this. But finishing is the hardest thing in soccer.”

The Redwings continued to attack after Caniglia’s goal but had only two more good chances, both of which came on corner kicks by Madie Burke in the minutes following the goal. The first corner was short and then cleared and the second resulted in a header by Colleen Lewellyan that was saved by York goalie Anna Bell Lansdowne, who finished with four saves.

“I feel that we matched them pretty evenly or even possibly more so, at least in the second half, because we were really hustling,” Stopko said. “We just couldn’t get a good snap shot off. Our team was really close to getting that second goal.”

Ultimately, the game may have ended differently if Guerino hadn’t scored so early.

“Ang did a great job, No. 1 hitting the target and obviously putting it in the way that made it tough for the goalkeeper to get her hands on it,” Halupka said. “From getting a goal in the first minute, this is our first game, we know [the Redwings] are coming in off a high winning three games and they’re a tough team. Give them credit that they came out here and put us under pressure and did their best to make us feel uncomfortable.”