Spartans blank R-B, AT to improve to 4-0 on season

 

 

By Curt Herron

In a season where as many matches have been cancelled by the weather than have been played, it's not surprising to see a tournament suffer a similar fate.

Lousy weather wiped out the opening day of St. Francis' Springfest Classic, reducing play to just two matches apiece on Tuesday at Schaumburg's Olympic Park.

So instead of having place matches in the 14-team competition, squads had to content themselves with making the most out of whoever they were paired against.

For the host Spartans, that meant facing Riverside-Brookfield and Addison Trail in consecutive matches on a cold afternoon for their third day of competition.

Beside the less-than-deal weather conditions, St. Francis also had to deal with a limited roster which was missing several senior regulars due to spring break.

But that turned out to be a positive situation for coach Jim Winslow, who made the most of the opportunity by getting other players a lot of time on the field.

After defeating Riverside-Brookfield 1-0 in its opener, St. Francis capped the day with a 6-0 win over Addison Trail to improve its record to 4-0 on the year.

Last year's Class 2A champions also recorded their fourth shutout. Continuing that streak while playing a lot of new faces was important to the Spartan coach.

"We had a great group of seniors last year and were able to win a state championship sooner than I expected," Winslow said. "As much as we miss having some of those kids back, the nice thing is that you have to start looking down the road again and giving new kids the opportunity to play so you can kind of see what you have, not just for this year but also for next spring.

"In the first game we did a lot of good things considering that we had a lot of young kids who had never played in varsity games before. Was it as clean as I wanted? No, because the bar has been set very high for us. But overall, I'm pleased with what I saw. We've played four games and still haven't given up a goal, so I'm also happy about that.

"Things are moving in a good direction, but we're not going to know how good we're going to be for another three of four weeks. We'll find that out when we have to grind in a game or when we're in a game that we shouldn't be or on the flip side if you're dominating a team and they score and can you continue to compete to get back in it.

"The thing that I like about these kids is that they learn. I've had today's group for two days and you saw things that we did in those two days already imprinted on what we're looking for. When you can do that, especially with the younger kids, then you're going to have success over time, and that's the big goal."

While some staples were missing, Winslow could rely on the play of senior Anna Vonderhaar plus Andrea Ravlin and Taylor Van Thournout, who each had two goals.

Brittany Douglass and Regan Kasprak also contributed goals for the Spartans, who have outscored their first four opponents by a 10-0 margin so far this year.

Brianna Miulli record the shutout in goal in the win over R-B while junior-varsity keeper Kate Lamantia did the same in net in the match with Addison Trail.

"Anna is a workhorse and always does a great job and Taylor and Andrea also did a nice job and those three are returning players," Winslow said. "And Brittany, who is finally getting more and more minutes after not playing last year because of a knee injury, also did a very nice job.

"Amanda (Shannon) and Alex (Zepeda), who normally aren't center backs played there today and did a great job. The best part was seeing Corky (Hart), Alyssa (Ochwat), Rachel (Rahman), Amanda and Alex playing back and all doing a solid job and they not stressing by making many mistakes."

While poor weather has made it difficult for things to come together for her squad, Van Thournout is pleased by what she's seen from the Spartans so far.

"Since we had most of our seniors gone, it was nice to get new faces in there and see how everyone played together," Van Thournout said. "I thought that they did really good and we worked well together. We did a good job of getting the ball wide and doing what coach told us to do.

"We're just trying to stay focused and do our best and see where the season takes us. We're all really close and we work well together so I think if we keep focused that we can go far."

While comparisons naturally come up with last year's championship squad, Ravlin stresses that this team is different and will establish its own identity.

"This is a new year and we have new girls on this team," Ravlin said. "So we're just trying to see where everyone fits best and we all go out and do our best in order to get things done. We're focused and get along really well and we're a close team and we're good at talking to each other.

"I thought that we did a pretty good job with the girls that we had today. We moved people around and got everyone comfortable. I think that we played well considering that we were missing a lot of girls."

The Spartans get some time off from competition and can focus on practice before playing road matches at Guerin and Glenbard South next Thursday and Friday.