Sabres bounce back with decisive victory over Addison Trail

 

 

By Dave Owen

The latest tip of the hat to Streamwood’s Kim Jimenez helped put the Sabres back on the winning track.

After seeing a nine-game unbeaten streak end with two straight losses, the Sabres rolled past Addison Trail 6-1 Saturday at Millennium Field behind Jimenez’s fourth hat trick of the season.

“My teammates look for me, and my speed helps me a lot,” Jimenez said. “I try to just cut through and run.”

Jimenez and teammate Tawny Carroll both routinely ran right past Addison Trail defenders, and Jimenez’s latest big offensive day could have been much bigger.

“I think Kim alone had 11 breakaways,” Streamwood coach Matt Polovin said. “I told her at halftime, when you get those chances whoever you play against you have to put those in. When we start playing against teams next week like Geneva and St. Charles East, you might get one or two chances.

“She has wheels. She can fly past pretty much anyone. I would have liked to see her put a few more of those away, but she still had three goals.”

Carroll came as close to her own hat trick as is possible, and was the early catalyst for the Sabres’ offense.

Off a cross from right wing by Ilma Skrgic five minutes into the match, Carroll lined a low shot into the net to put Streamwood (9-4-3) ahead 1-0.

Then with 27:42 left in the half, Carroll beat an Addison Trail defender to a loose ball, dribbled in on a breakaway and put the Sabres up 2-0.

“Our speed of play was really working,” Carroll said. “We kept passing upfield and making runs. That was really good. Unfortunately I kind of slowed down after a while.”

Carroll (who has 12 goals this season) didn’t slow down as much as ran into bad luck. In the second half, she hit the post with a shot with 35:30 left, was denied on a penalty kick by a great diving save from Addison Trail goalkeeper Devin Fruzyna with 17:15 to play, then sent a 25-yard blast off the crossbar in the final seven minutes.

“We could have had so many (goals), but at least some of them went in,” Carroll said. “We came into the game having just lost two games, and we wanted to pick our winning mentality back up. We really went in hard, and hopefully this continues and we can play like this against Batavia (on Tuesday) and Geneva and teams like that.”

Jimenez had already been denied on two early breakaways when, with 25:26 left in the first half, her sprint up the middle and ensuing shot resulted in a 3-0 Streamwood lead.

“We wanted to send a lot of through balls,” Jimenez said. “We saw the way that they were formed, and we know that our team has a lot of speed. The plan was to just hit it over (the defense) and run.”

Long distance power more than speed added to the lead. With 9:39 left before halftime, defender Sharice Ellenwood drove a perfect 38-yard free kick just under the crossbar to send Streamwood into the break up 4-0.

“I was just trying to get it close so we could get a header,” Ellenwood said. “I wasn’t expecting to get the goal, but I was glad to get it. I usually don’t score since I’m all the way in the back, so it was exciting.”

Ellenwood, Hannah McGlone, Christina Corona and Rosa Miranda are part of the defender corps in front of goalkeeper Nathalie Guindon.

“We’re really starting to connect on defense,” Ellenwood said. “We work well together.”

Streamwood’s defense has seven shutouts this season.

“Sharice Ellenwood my sweeper has been our rock back there,” Polovin said. “She solidifies our defense, she keeps everyone together, and the girls listen to her. She’s our defensive captain for sure.

“And Hannah McGlone, you’re not going to beat her in the air and you really almost can’t beat her on the ground because she has great recovery speed for a taller, bigger girl. She’s just so athletic, and with her throw-ins too it’s like another corner kick.

“And I thought Ilma Skrgic had a really nice game today,” Polovin added. “She’s been getting better and better each game. With her too we work on our speed of play, and you can just see players like that really start to understand it.”

Jimenez’s speed was the Sabres’ main weapon in the final 45 minutes. The senior was denied by Fruzyna saves on two breakaways in the last 3:50 of the first half, the latter attack with 40 seconds left in the half also featuring a nice save on Alexis Luna’s point blank rebound shot.

The second half would bring many more chances for Jimenez, starting with two nice finishes.

With 31:31 to play, Jimenez raced past a defender and lined a 15-yard shot off the diving Fruzyna’s hands and into the net. Then at the 24:03 mark, the senior capped her latest hat trick with another burst up the middle and laser inside the left post.

“Overall it was a good game,” Polovin said. “I wanted to work on our speed of play – really two touch, move the ball around quickly and get the ball off your foot and let your ball do the work. We had movement off the ball, some nice overlapping runs, got the ball in the box and then tried to do the rest by putting the ball in the back of the net.”

Jimenez had two great bids to add to her hat trick with 17:50 left, as her first breakaway shot was stopped by Fruzyna and her rebound hit the post.

“Their keeper did really well,” Jimenez said. “I felt like I could have had a lot more (goals).”

Briana Spike was also an offensive factor for Streamwood, sending two shots just wide of the goal and making passes to ignite several of the Sabres' breakaways.

Addison Trail denied Streamwood a shutout by scoring a rebound goal off a 30-yard free kick with 5:35 left, but that hardly diminished the Sabres’ dominating day.

“We’re happy to take a win whenever we can,” Ellenwood said, “and coming back from two losses it’s great to get a big win.

“If we just keep working hard, we’re going to do fine. But we do need more practice because we’ve had straight games for a while.”

Another stretch of three games in three days starts Tuesday against Batavia.

“As we get to this part of the season,” Polovin said, “we still have a lot of tough games – Neuqua Valley in a crossover game (May 7), Geneva, Batavia, St. Charles East.

“There’s no easy games in this conference, but I want them to get better and better as a team so when we get into regionals against Conant in our first game, who knows. Conant’s a great team, but if we keep playing the way we’re playing and step up each game, maybe we’ll give them a good game.”