Grens blank Cougars to pick up victory in MSL opener

 

 

By Matt Le Cren

It was a tale of two breakaways.

Playing in the muck that passes for Elk Grove’s football field, Conant and Elk Grove opened the Mid-Suburban League season Wednesday night with a typically hard-fought, evenly-played game common to the MSL.

There were two breakaways in the match, one for each side. Conant missed its breakaway, but Elk Grove converted its chance and held on for a 1-0 victory.

Junior forward Nikki Zaino tallied the only goal, her third of the season, when she ran onto a long boot from Sarah Stram and raced untouched for 40 yards before beating Conant keeper Haley Anderson with 24:03 left in the second half.

“It was a great ball by Sarah and [I] just [had] to get on the end of it and finish it,” Zaino said. “It’s always close playing against Conant, so we knew it was going to be difficult coming into it. We just had to play our hearts out and we did and we got the win, luckily.”

The visiting Cougars (1-2-1, 0-1) outshot the Grenadiers 14-8 and had most of the few quality scoring chances. The best came with 8:45 remaining in the first half when sophomore Sidney O’Keefe broke free up the middle but fired a 10-yard shot over the crossbar.

Though plenty of action was still to come, that miss came back to haunt the Cougars.

“I knew with the field being the way it was it was going to be kind of a hard-working, ugly, gritty game,” Conant coach Jason Franco said. “I thought both teams did a pretty good job of it.

“We made one bad mistake and gave them a breakaway. You can’t do that. Even on a bad surface it’s hard to score on those and I felt that we had one in the first half that we didn’t score on and they had one in the second half that they did score on.”

Zaino’s goal was a bolt from the blue as Conant’s fullbacks had pushed up to midfield to support the attack. Stram’s clearing pass from the top of her own penalty area sailed over everyones’ heads and Zaino timed her break perfectly.

“Both our center defenders stepped for some reason and we’re still new in the season and we didn’t cover for them and it just opened up this big hole in the middle of our defense,” Franco said. “It can’t happen. We’ll fix it.”

Neither coach was happy with the field conditions. For Conant, it was their only scheduled game on grass this spring. The Grenadiers (3-1, 1-0) also prefer playing on turf but they feel they might have a home-field advantage by playing on grass.

“It’s definitely tough playing on this field but we’ve just got to go with it and I think we did well,” Zaino said. “Sometimes it’s nice to have one of the only grass fields because I feel like turf’s easier and we’re really used to playing on a rougher surface.”

Despite the slippery conditions, the Cougars were dangerous offensively, with O’Keefe, Lauren Lejman, Bianca Madonia and Alyssa Altosino playing well with the ball and defender Drew Wentzel creating havoc with her corner kicks and free kicks, including a 30-yarder she ripped just over the crossbar at the 16:50 mark of the first half.

O’Keefe had two left-footed attempts from inside the box, including a partial breakaway, in the opening period but was unable to get much pace on either shot and Elk Grove goalie Melissa Solorio handled both easily. Lejman saw a 22-yard liner swing wide of the right post and Courtney O’Keefe had a 15-yard rocket from the right side of the box deflected up in the air and caught by Solorio.

“They’re nice players and we’re going to try to get them more balls, try to combine more, and we couldn’t do that on this surface,” Franco said. “[Elk Grove coach Dan] Klaus did a good job once [the Grenadiers] scored. He put all of their best athletes in the back and they kind of neutralized them.”

Indeed, the Grenadiers got outstanding performances from their back line of senior Emily Wary, junior Jocelyn Potratz, sophomore Alexis Olague and freshman Alyson Czyzewski.

Olague had to leave the game in the 14th minute after blocking a Conant shot with her face. She was replaced by freshman Bailey Murphy and the Grens never missed a beat.

“She’s really smart,” Wary said of Olague, who didn’t return and is day-to-day. “Her and Jocelyn, whenever they’re next to me we work well together. We talk a lot, so it’s nice, and then at the end when we know they’re going to be playing harder because the [time] is getting shorter, we move back Stram and [midfielder] Kelly [Naughton] and we’ve just got a good thing going.”

Solorio cleaned up anything the defenders couldn’t reach, making six saves to record the shutout. None was better than her effort with 5:00 to go before intermission when Madonia launced a hard shot that appeared headed for the lower left corner of the net.

The Grens keeper reached out at the last second to knock the ball down and then raced out to knock it down again on the bounce, looking like a basketball player dribbling out of trouble as a Conant player was bearing down on her.

“Solorio did a nice job,” Klaus said. “She’s been practicing well and doing a nice job.”

As has Wary, who spent the last three seasons at right back before moving into the middle to replace former star Katie Naughton, who now plays for Notre Dame. Wary has taken change in impressive fashion. She blocked four Conant shots and the one time she was beaten one-on-one, Potratz was there to win the ball back.

“It’s definitely different,” Wary said. “You’ve got to know when to relieve, when to hold. You’re not in a certain territory. You’ve kind of got like a bigger space, but I like it better. I see more of the field.”

Except for Zaino’s breakaway, Conant’s defense of Wentzel, senior Emily Borkenhagen and sophomores Dhara Patel and Katie Lomas was just as solid.

“I’m happy with the effort,” Franco said. “I wouldn’t say I’m happy with the quality, but I don’t know how much quality is possible on a field like that. It’s our only grass game of the year. I would have liked to sneak out of here with a win or a tie, but we’ll take it, I guess.”

So will Klaus.

“It really could have gone either way,” Klaus said. “I know we’re going to be in a lot of close games this year and that was a perfect example. The girls gutted it out and did a good job. It was far from attractive, but I’m proud of the girls and it was nice to get that first Mid-Suburban win.”