O'Keefe goal gives Cougars OT win
By Matt Le Cren

Conant sophomore forward Sidney O’Keefe readily admits that she feels the pressure to score when she goes one-on-one with a goalie.

She didn’t let the pressure get to her when she found herself in that situation Monday night. O’Keefe latched on to a long ball from Kayla Severinsen and scored 2:20 into overtime to give the host Cougars a 1-0 Mid-Suburban League victory over Fremd in Hoffman Estates.

The goal was the third of the year for O’Keefe and came on a rare defensive mishap by the Vikings.

“It looked like their center back just misjudged it and it bounced over her head,” Conant coach Jason Franco said. “I don’t know how exactly she missed it because they did a very good job all game of not letting it get over them. They’re pretty good in the back, so to get that one was very fortunate.

“Sid did a good job finishing. She usually gets a little nervous on breakaways. She’s snake-bitten on them but today she scored.”

Severinsen said her pass was just a normal send up to the forwards, but when the ball got over the defense, O’Keefe found it and raced into the right side of the penalty area and rolled a shot under the arm of Fremd goalie Christine Piasecki.

“My heart stops [on those plays],” O’Keefe said. “In my mind I was just thinking, ‘hit it to the corner,’ because every time I pass it straight to the goalie. So I was nervous until it went over [the line].”

The shot was just the second of the match for O’Keefe, whose only previous attempt was a 20-yarder that went wide of the right post early in the second half.

Conant (3-2-1, 2-1) enjoyed a 14-7 edge in shots but the Vikings (2-3-2, 1-2) arguably controlled more of the run of play in the evenly played contest.

“It was one of those games where the goalies both played well and it was a pretty even game,” Franco said. “It was unfortunate that someone had to lose this one.

“I thought Fremd played hard and we played hard. It was fun to watch us compete against a good team and get a result.”

But it was anything but easy. Fremd’s back line led by Meredith Mottonen, Cassie Etelemaki and Courtney Norenberg played stiff defense, especially in the penalty area, and Piasecki was terrific between the pipes, making seven saves, including a diving stop on Leah Celarek in the first half, a leaping grab of a high-arcing attempt by Zoe Shoro in the second half and then a sure-handed grab of open shot on the run by Rachel Raymer with 10 seconds left in regulation that got the visitors into overtime.

“She came up with some huge saves,” Fremd coach Steve Keller said of Piasecki.

Piasecki’s counterpart, sophomore Haley Anderson, also had a solid effort with four saves. Anderson denied Michelle Mottonen, who had scored both goals in Fremd’s 2-1 win over Palatine on Saturday, with a diving effort in the first half and made a leaping stop on a tricky 38-yard free kick by Stephanie Buga nine minutes into the second half.

Anderson also adroitly came off her line to cut over several corner kicks. Fremd had six corners in the match but had nothing to show for it. That’s been a common occurrence for the Vikings, who have been shut out three times so far. They have lost two 1-0 matches in the past four days.

“Both teams had chances and that’s what we talked to our girls about,” Keller said. “That’s the game of soccer. You’ve got to capitalize and we didn’t.

“You can say, ‘ok, we made the mistake at the end of the game,’ but there were other mistakes that they could have scored on easily and there were mistakes they made that we could have scored on. They were the team that got it done tonight and we didn’t.

The Cougars can empathize with the Vikings as they too have been blanked three times this spring, including a 1-0 loss to Elk Grove last Wednesday. It makes this victory feel even more special.

“The past couple years we’ve always won so many games,” Conant junior midfielder Bianca Madonia said. “It always came easy to us. Now we have to fight.

“Now I feel like we’re working even harder than before, so it feels better to win games like this because we feel like we deserve it more.”

The Cougars felt like they had the better scoring chances in regulation. They nearly broke the ice with 11:35 left in the second half when junior Nicole Lorenz hit the top of the right post with a 30-yard shot into the wind, but didn’t mind going to overtime to get the victory.

“Every win counts,” Severinsen said. “Because we’ve been struggling this year it feels good to finally beat a good team.

“It will really help our confidence for the next few games because Fremd is a great team, so it feels good to beat someone like them.”

Keller didn’t feel too bad about the loss because neither team dominated play, but he did reiterate how important finishing is.

“We have no one to blame but ourselves,” Keller said. “I could sense before the game that we were a little not as focused as we should be and I said that right before kickoff.

“At halftime we talked about how for the first 25 minutes we had the better run of play and we had nothing to show for it and actually they had the best chance during that time. So the girls have got to realize you’ve got to finish your chances when you create them and you can’t make defensive mistakes that could cost you the game.

“We had a couple breakdowns but overall it was a solid effort. We’ll go back to the drawing board.”

Both teams will continue MSL play on Wednesday. Fremd hosts Wheeling, while Conant hosts Buffalo Grove.