Mustangs struggle against SC North in Invite opener

 

 

By Matt Le Cren

Since her team hasn’t been able to practice outside yet, it has been hard for St. Charles North coach Ruth Vostal to gauge just how advanced it is.

But when you have a player like Alex Gage in your lineup, preparation may not matter.

Gage was the maestro of the midfield Wednesday night, completely controlling the match and leading the North Stars to a 2-0 victory over host Downers Grove South at the Downers Grove South Invitational.

The senior star scored the first goal on a free kick and assisted on the second, but her talent and dominance was felt throughout the contest.

“We’ve talked about how she’s a four-year varsity player and we know that she’s been an incredibly talented player,” Vostal said of Gage.

“This year she’s healthy, she’s fit, she’s a senior and she’s matured. I think she’s the type of player who can dominate in the midfield, can dominate any game and today was an awesome start for her.”

Gage, who will play at Loyola next year with her older sister, Sammy, missed the first nine games of her junior season while recovering from a torn ACL and contributed four goals and four assists as St. Charles North finished second at the state finals.

This year she’s poised to do a lot more damage, as evidenced by her contributions in handing the Mustangs (3-1) their first loss of the year.

Gage opened the scoring with a scorching 25-yard free kick into the upper right corner with 28:01 to go in the first half and spent much of the rest of the game carving up the Downers South defense with precision passes.

One such feed came with 31:59 to go in the second half when Gage threaded the ball through two defenders to Alyssa Brandt, who was streaking into the box from the left side.

Downers South goalie Jamie Furio alertly rushed off her line to cut down the angle but Brandt’s shot was true and the North Stars (3-0) had a 2-0 lead.

“Alyssa cut in the behind the defense awesome and I saw her,” Gage said. “She was very loud and the communication was there and she made a perfect run through and that’s what got us our goal.

“We played awesome today. Our first two games were a little mediocre for us but these games here are what’s going to make us better. When you play hard teams, you get better and I’m very happy to play [at this tournament].”

Brandt’s goal was indicative of how the action went as the North Stars possessed the ball in the midfield with the Mustangs unable to pry it free from Gage, Natalie Winkates and Lizzie Parrilli.

Gage took only three shots but barely missed a second goal when she fired just over the bar on a 30-yard free kick. Another of her set pieces from distance just missed the head of Danielle Noverini in front.

The North Stars’ passing game was a thing to see, with diagonal feeds finding the seams in the Downers South defense and giving plenty of opportunities for the likes of Brandt, Kelly Manski and Sophie Pohl.

“This is only our third time outside and it’s our third game, so we’ve been training in small gyms,” Vostal said. “It’s been hard to see formations and width and that kind of thing, so I was pleased to see the kinds of runs we were making off the ball because that was one of the areas that I was really concerned about.

“Natalie, Lizzie, Alex; they’re all great players and they all contributed. They have a great vision of the field and I thought our offensive pressure was good. We had a lot of people making those diagonal runs which created a lot for us.”

Gage directed and initiated much of that traffic but humbly shared the credit.

“I’m very happy with how I played,” Gage said. “Last year was hard because I tore my ACL, so I did not have a preseason and that was really hard but this year I did.

“And the girls are really helping me push through it. I look good because the girls help me look good. You cannot look good without your teammates and our midfield played great together tonight. We were able to get off shots and I can’t do it without them.”

At a time when nearly every team is yearning to practice outdoors while being denied by Mother Nature, the North Stars looked like they were in mid-season form.

“It’s kind of hard right now because we can’t even play outside because our field is a mess, so our communication was awesome tonight,” Gage said. “I think that really helped us because we were able to connect and I was able to talk with my backs and with Kenzie [Rose] and with Jorie [Clawson] and with Jenny [Barr]. That really helped us with the win.

“It just fit together perfectly. I think we really took a great leap ahead tonight. Our movement up top was awesome and that’s what kind of helped. We were able to check in and get great forward movement and it was awesome.”

It wasn’t as fun for the Mustangs, who were outshot 18-6 and didn’t really create any dangerous scoring chances. Brittany Dietz mustered four shots, two of which were saved and two that went wide, while Ava Porlier took the other two shots on North Stars goalie Shelby Stitz, who made three saves for the shutout.

Other than that, the ball was mostly in their own end, where defenders Lauren Tusek, Lori Niehaus, Caitlin Carr and Caroline Porlier did a great job of hustling and keeping the Mustangs within shouting distance. Furio also was solid, making 10 saves.

“[The North Stars] were strong, they were fast,” Downers South coach Abby Anderson said. “They were just able to possess and attack, which is what we would like to do, and for us it was a different game. We haven’t played a challenging game. We haven’t played a defensive game and we played a defensive game tonight.

“But I’m proud of the effort. My girls worked. We asked them today to not get outworked and to leave everything on the field and I think we did that, so we can be happy with what we saw and hopefully look at some game tape and see what we need to work on.”

The Mustangs primarily need to work on being cool under pressure against top teams like St. Charles North. Their inexperience in that area is the result of Anderson’s switch to a more ball-control style.

“We just need to play a little bit more calm in the midfield and be able to possess,” Anderson said. “We want to possess and that’s different because that’s not what they played last year.

“We have such dangerous, dynamic forwards. If we can get them the ball, we can be dangerous, but we weren’t able to do that today and we were on our heels so much that whenever the ball did come to our feet we wanted to get rid of it right away. We need to be able to play at that level, but our game.”

Vostal, for one, came away impressed with the team the North Stars beat in last year’s state semifinals.

“I didn’t know what to expect. I knew that they graduated some of their great players,” Vostal said. They always have great players coming in and they’re under a new coach, I wasn’t really sure what their style was.

“We knew that [after] we ended their season last year they were going to come in with a little bit of fire and intensity. I thought it was a great match overall.”