Scouts put 7 on the board in regional semifinal match
By Gary Larsen

Lake Forest’s girls may have struggled to put goals on the board early in the season but no

 

w everyone is getting in on the act.

After scoring 10 goals in their first 10 games of the year, the Scouts (8-2-6) have put 19 goals on the board in their last three games, including Tuesday’s 7-0 regional semifinal win over Wauconda.

At least part of the reason that goals didn’t come easy early in the season was the competition that Class 2A Lake Forest played, with Class 3A teams sprinkled generously throughout its schedule.

But more importantly, the Scouts just had to get to know each other.

“We finally got to learn how we play together and who should play where, with who,” Lake Forest keeper Liz Clark said. “We have such a new team and it just took some time. I think we started to click in the game against Lane Tech (on April 13). We won 3-1 and I think that’s the game where we really started to see what we can do.”

The Scouts have gone 6-1-3 in their last 10 games and Tuesday’s win sent the second-seeded Scouts to the title game of Antioch’s 2A Regional on Friday, against Wednesday’s winner between No. 7 Antioch and No. 10 Von Stueben.

Goals came early for the Scouts against Wauconda as they grabbed a 3-0 lead by the game’s 10th minute thanks to goals from Brooke Green, Carly Hoke, and Jenny McKendry on a pair of Lucy Edwards assists and one from Hoke.

The Scouts put five goals on the board in the second half of a 5-1 win over Grant six days earlier, and ever has it been in soccer that once a team starts to score, then it really starts to believe it can score.

“It gives us confidence,” senior Dani Loeger said. “In the beginning of the year we were winning games by one and playing in close games. But this gives us confidence and it gives a lot of different people a chance to score, so it’s encouraging.”

Stuckslager made mass substitutions mid-way through the first half and Ginny Revenaugh made it 4-0 at 27 minutes, when Kendall Hoke carried the ball for 50 yards before sending it ahead on the right side , with Revenaugh finishing nicely from 20 yards out.

“We talked about making sure that we started quickly,” Lake Forest coach Ty Stuckslager said. “But the second ten minutes, even though (Wauconda) didn’t get anything done, we were a little lackadaisical. Wauconda got fired up and started attacking but we relaxed a little.”

The Scouts came out in pressure mode after halftime to the 52nd minute, when McKendry scored again off a through-ball from Carly Hoke to make it 5-0. Paige Bourne and Mackenzie Adams also scored in the second half, with Adams assisting on Bourne’s goal before taking a feed from Courtney Ardell on the left side and taking it to the endline.

Adams cut it back to her right foot and blistered a shot from an insane angle to the upper 90 at the far post, finishing the day’s scoring.

The Scouts have now scored 38 goals and only given up 11 in 16 games, with Clark and her backline posting their 9th shutout of the season.

“Kendall (Hoke), Sydney (Johnston), Bailey (Ehrens), Dani (Loeger), Allie (Banta), and Adrian (Walker) have all played in back and I totally trust our defense,” Clark said.

Stuckslager liked what he got on the outside on Tuesday.

“I thought Jenny (McKendry) played well. Our wings, Jenny and Adrian (Walker), both played well today, and Brooke (Green) and Syd (Johnston) on the back wings are attacking up and back and they can really tire people out,” he said.

“I think our midfield drops too much at times but it’s good to have numbers behind the ball, too. Our way to winning the midfield is possession and I think we’ve possessed it pretty well. That’s where losing Sheridan (Bufe) is going to hurt us and we’ll have to work around it, but I think that Lucy, Paige, and Carly, and Hannah Flagstad all played well today.”

The freshman Bufe suffered a season-ending injury recently and has been lost for the season.

With six freshmen and six sophomores on their roster, the Scouts have had to be patient as the youngsters learned the ropes of varsity soccer this year.

“We’re so young and playing with each other and understanding new positions,” Stuckslager said. “We basically have 15 midfielders but we’re playing some of them at forward and some of them on defense.”

“We do well when we have that extra second to think, so what we have to do is turn that into anticipating, because that anticipating will give us that extra second that we need. A lot of our girls are playing against girls three years older than they are, so they’ve had to acclimate to the speed and size playing against them. But they’ve done well.”

A win in Friday’s regional title game would give Lake Forest its 9th regional title and its 4th in the past five years.