Golden Eagles fall 1-0 at Wheaton North
By Gary Larsen

When Wheaton North attacked well it scored a goal and when Jacobs applied pressure, it didn’t.
Thursday’s Pepsi Showdown game featured a single goal off the foot of the Falcons’ Lexi Pelafas in the first half, during a 30-minute span when North had everything going its way.

“I think we were hustling hard to the ball and playing aggressive,” senior mid Anne Denz said. “We strung more passes together in the beginning of the game and that gave us momentum, and we were making better runs and finding those runs up top. We’ve been working hard to find each other.”

Pelafas struck in the game’s  24th minute. The sophomore took a ball to the endline on the right side and then cut it back and took a touch before firing it left-footed to the back netting.

With forwards Pelafas and Clare Kocher working hard up top, center mids Denz and Lauren Szumski winning balls, and outside mids Gracie Klatt and Brittany Norris involved in the final third, all was right with the world in the Falcons’ attack in the first half.

“We did a good job of pressing the ball, we connected passes fairly well, we found Lexi behind, we had our outside mids beating them to the endline and looking to find people in the box or attacking the goalie themselves,” Wheaton North coach Tim McEvilly said. “There was a good variety of things going on. We were still missing on that final pass but at least we were linking three or four or five passes in a row.”

Pelafas sent a head shot set up by a corner kick over the crossbar two minutes into the contest, and Jacobs keeper Ellie Samin had to save two shots through the game’s 7th minute.  Pelafas reached the endline and fired a ball at the near post that Samin stopped to a corner kick at 16 minutes, and Samin stopped a hard-hit one-hopper from distance a minute later.

“(Pelafas) is real good in the air, real physical, and if you give her a foot, she’ll turn you,” Jacobs coach A.J. Cappello said. “She’s good, but I thought in the first thirty minutes they all looked great. They were playing hard and they’re a nice hard-working team. We were much better once we started fighting back.”

As well as Wheaton North (4-2-1) played through 40 minutes, it was a Jacobs (3-6-0) team chasing a one-goal deficit that elevated its intensity after halftime. The game’s final 20 minutes saw the Golden Eagles fighting tooth-and-nail for a tying goal on the Falcons’ half of the midfield stripe.

Jacobs’ Amy Rigby reached the endline on the left side at 47 minutes and served a hard ball to the near post that North keeper Jessica Kiely handled cleanly, before Wheaton North’s Emily Barry took a freekick from the right side at 54 minutes that Pelafas headed wide.

The Falcons earned a corner kick at 59 minutes that went for naught, and it was at that point when the Golden Eagles really came to life.

Jacobs’ Kylie Dennison laid a nice ball off on the right side to teammate Bailey Adams at 63 minutes, then blasted a shot from 18 yards out at 63 minutes that Wheaton North keeper Jessica Kiely handled cleanly, and Dennison dribbled up the left flank and sent a shot wide at 64 minutes.

“When Kylie wants to wreak havoc, she can wreak havoc,” Cappello said. “I wouldn’t even like to defend her one-on-one. She can go left, right, and she just has to stay positive and keep working.”

Jacobs defender Margaret Rivera has been dangerous on freekicks all year and she forced Kiely to slap a ball away from the upper ninety on a kick taken from 40-plus yards out. Kiely raced after the rebound, sliding up the endline to gather it at 65 minutes.

Dennison broke behind the defense at 72 minutes and fired wide, Pelafas earned a corner kick for North at 74 minutes, and Rivera sent a freekick bomb wide of net at 77 minutes.  Rivera hit another freekick from midfield that led to Rigby sending in a cross from the left side, but Kiely elevated in the box and gathered it in the game’s 78th minute.

They weren’t rewarded with a goal but the girls from Jacobs showed what they made of, playing in their sixth game in nine days.

“I think we just realized we were down 1-0 and after a couple losses we realized we needed a goal, and we just started to click,” Jacobs senior back Dani Blanchard said. “We should have come out from the get-go like that. When we play a hundred percent like that… we’re so close. We just have to find that fire from the get-go.”

Unfortunately for Jacobs, hard-working junior midfielder Kelly Grady was lost for the game due to injury, late in the first half.

“She tweaked her knee. She’s tough as nails and she put herself in there on a hard tackle and unfortunately she got caught,” Cappello said. “There isn’t a training (session) or a game when she doesn’t put it all out there on the line. We’ll just hope for the best.”

Cappello applauded the day’s work put in by Alyssa Sandblom, Talia Surges, and Bailey Adams, and was happy with the way his team fought down the stretch despite the fatigue factor at play.

“That’s the team we built to when we played Lyons the other day. It was the same kind of fight that we had,” Cappello said. “We won fifty-fifties, we challenged head balls – the last ten minutes of the first half we started to pick it up. You’ve just got to be willing to put yourself out there, get bumped around a little, and take a hit.”

For the Falcons, senior keeper Kiely made every play she needed to make to earn the shutout, negotiating a slick artificial surface and a wet soccer ball to keep Jacobs out of net.

“(Kiely) can cover the goal with her size and her improvement in her technique. You can take things for granted sometimes and you have to recognize that she did do a good, simple job,” McEvilly said. “She was in some dangerous situations because of the weather today, but Jessica can make those plays. Sometimes as a goalie your only job is to make sure nothing ever becomes dangerous.”

McEvilly was less pleased with his side’s play in the second half, especially after his Falcons had used such variety in their attack in the first.

Denz was clear on the difference between the two halves.

“We were working a lot better in the middle to find our outsides, and that was giving our outsides more runs up top,” Denz said. “We still have to work on our possession and work on our first touches a little bit, and if we get that under control everything will work better.”

The Falcons were also playing out a rough stretch of their schedule, in their fifth game in 10 days. Neither center back Emily Barry nor Linnae Giuliano are healthy but both gutted out another 80 minutes.

“We’re really banged up back there,” McEvilly said. “But Lyndi Armstrong on the outside really helps cover when we have to put some people with less experience back there, and HB Rowland has been doing a nice job as well. When all four are healthy, it’s a really good backline.”