Sabres capture easy UEC River win over Larkin

 

 

By Chris Walker

Perhaps Streamwood senior Kim Jimenez should change her name to Trey Jimenez. Maybe Trinity Jimenez?

How about simply Hat Trick Jimenez? That’s got a nice ring to it doesn’t it?

Jimenez celebrated National Name Yourself Day by scoring three times in a 7-0 victory over Larkin at Elgin’s Memorial Field on Tuesday.

National Name Yourself Day is a fun day where you can change your name for the day to whatever you’d like for the day.

While Jimenez didn’t participate in the peculiarity of such a day, she had no problem being known as Hat Trick, at least for one night.

Check that, at least a second night.

Although we’re not even midway though April, Jimenez’s hat trick was her second of the season. Through seven games, she now has eight goals while Larkin only has six as a team.

“She’s so deceptive and has a ton of speed,” Streamwood coach Matt Polovin said. “When she gets behind the defense it’s tough to stay with her. The only way you can stop her is if you take her down from behind or if she has a bad shot and the goalie stops her. She’s just a non-stop ball of energy out there.”

Jimenez only could laugh when this reporter asked her about changing her name from Kim to Hat Trick, but she was all smiles about her and her team’s success.

“I really felt good about us having possession for most of the night and controlling the ball really well,” she said. “When we’ve got that going on, good things usually happen.”

It did take awhile for Jimenez and her teammates to get going.

More than halfway through the first half, the only thing that saw movement on the scoreboard was the running clock. Finally, with 17:43 remaining in the first half, the Sabres scored off a corner kick.

Sophomore Tawny Carroll delivered the kick, which bounced dangerously amongst a crowd. Freshman Stephanie Corona displayed no newcomer jitters as she secured possession and tapped it in.

Jimenez sent a beautiful pass to Carroll a few minutes later and the Sabres looked destined to pull ahead 2-0 but Carroll misfired just wide right.

Disappointed, she made sure she didn’t miss the back of the net on her next opportunity. She didn’t have to wait long.

Junior Erika Delgado snagged possession of a ball that the Larkin defense was unable to clear. She burst ahead, fired a cross to a sprinting Carroll who connected with 9:57 before intermission to make it 2-0.

“Getting that first goal was key, which took us longer than it should’ve,” Carroll said. “Then I should’ve had one more, but missed. I was just happy we kept pushing and getting more opportunities.”

The opportunities came to life thanks to good connection play, something that has come along very recently and helped the team achieve success.

“We’ve been working a lot on speed of play,” Carroll said. “At first we didn’t connect very well, but we’ve been working a lot on quick passes, which we did a lot of tonight. It definitely is helping us on bigger fields.”

Streamwood (3-2-2, 1-0-0) extended its lead to 3-0 at halftime when Jimenez entered the scoring column with 1:09 left on the clock. She accelerated past a pair of defenders and was faced with a one-on-one with Larkin keeper Alejandra Villagomez.

Villagomez nearly smothered Jimenez’s first attempt, but the shot caromed off her front side, allowing Jimenez to secure the rebound and easily serve it into the net.

“I just used my speed there to take advantage,” Jimenez said. “I just try to cut through people and get past them as quick as I can.”

Overshadowed by the Sabres ability to score three times in the final 18 minutes was its midfield and defensive play, which eliminated just about every scoring chance for Larkin.

With Hannah McGlone and Sharice Ellenwood leading the backline, the Royals (2-5-0, 0-2-0) were unable to post much of a threat.

“Every time they touched the ball we closed them down,” Polovin said. “No turn and no foul. With 6-foot-2 Hannah you’re not going to get around her and not going to go over her, and Sharice is behind her to close things down. It sounded like they were communicating a lot and closing things down fast.”

Of course, the Sabres didn’t need such a strong defensive effort as they turned the game into a blowout in the second half, scoring four times.

“We wanted a shutout and if we didn’t get the shutout we would’ve been very disappointed with ourselves,” Ellenwood said. “So we were happy to get the shutout, and it feels great to win a conference game, especially against Larkin.”

While the two teams have had their share of battles over the years, not just in girls soccer but in many sports in the Upstate Eight River Conference, Tuesday’s game won’t be remembered as one of the nailbiting classics.

Polovin’s not complaining, though.

“It was nice to see everything we’ve been working on come out tonight against Larkin,” Polovin said. “Any time we can beat Larkin, I’ll take it. We’ve got a big rivalry on the boys side in the fall, so to do it on the girls side, it feels good and I know the girls were really pumped up for this game as well.”

Jimenez scored off a rebound with 31:49 left and then used her speed to score on a breakaway with 22:12 left to complete her hat trick and give the Sabres a 5-0 lead.

Sophomore Ilma Skrgic joined in the scoring party with 13:44 left while Caroll netted her second goal of the evening, and final of the contest for Streamwood with 9:01 left, which allowed the officials to enforce the mercy rule and cut the remaining time in half.

“We had a lot of fun tonight once we got going,” Skrgic said. “We were kind of hesitant and a little nervous to start but then we warmed up to things, knew what we were getting into and did what we knew we could. Once we got the first two to three goals we were like ‘We got this,’ and just continued going on and having fun.”