Grens strike first but can't hold off Fillies in MSL clash

 

 

By Matt Le Cren

Barrington coach Ryan Stengren was concerned.

His team was trailing by a goal in a key road game against a skilled opponent packing it in defensively in hopes of pulling off an upset. A loss would have seriously damaged any hopes of winning a conference championship.

Turns out there was no need for worry. The visiting Fillies finally broke through Elk Grove’s iron curtain defense in the 59th minute and pumped in four goals in a span of 15 minutes to rally for a harder-than-it-looked 4-1 victory in Mid-Suburban League action Monday night.

The victory moved Barrington (10-4-1, 6-2-1) one point ahead of Conant (8-4-4, 5-1-3), which tied Hersey 0-0, in the race for the MSL West title.

“We haven’t played on a grass field yet, so that was a challenge for us,” Stengren said. “I really have [a team with] good character, coming back down 1-0. You saw our potential in the second half. We put four in in one half.

“We found a rhythm on the ground and we won a ton more 50-50 balls in the second half. Now we have to keep building on this.”

Four different players found the back of the net for the Fillies, who struggled mightily to get a goal against an Elk Grove team that had shut out eight of its first 11 opponents, including its last three.

Each side mustered only two shots in the first half, but Elk Grove (8-4, 6-3) nearly scored on both.

Senior Emily Wary hit the crossbar with a shot in the 10th minute off a Jocelyn Potratz corner kick and then she gave the Grenadiers a 1-0 lead with 15:17 left in the opening period when she scored her fourth goal of the season – and third in as many games – on a coolly-placed 10-yarder after Sarah Stram’s shot from the top of the circle was redirected by Nikki Zaino.

“We came out so strong, so strong,” said Wary, a four-year starting defender who has been seeing more action as a midfielder of late. “Mid might be my new position.”

Clinging to a one-goal lead and faced with playing into a stiff wind, the Grenadiers changed tactics in the second half, going with five defenders and leaving Zaino to forage alone up front. Elk Grove coach Dan Klaus was betting his defense could hold off Barrington’s high-powered offense.

“I was trying to get a goal with the wind and we did,” Klaus said. “The way we played in the first half, I don’t think we would have survived in the second half, playing at that speed.”

Klaus was probably right because the Fillies like to play fast and have the speed to do it. But no one foresaw the final score.

“They’re a good team, but I did not expect that, I’ll be honest with you,” Wary said. “Last time we beat them was on this field my sophomore year.”

The Fillies began the second half by earning a corner kick just 40 seconds in and attacked in waves. But the Grenadiers, who packed their own penalty area with as many as 10 players at times, repulsed every move for the first 18 minutes.

Goalie Melissa Solorio was stellar, making six of her seven saves after intermission and aggressively coming off her line to snag a series of dangerous corner kicks and crosses. Stram, a midfielder who moved to defense in the second half, cleared a header by Molly Pfeiffer off the goal line with 28:50 left and helped defenders Potratz, Alexis Olague, Alyson Czyzewski and Stephanie Solis stay calm.

But Barrington finally tied the game at the 21:32 mark when Pfeiffer snuck a six-yard header between Solorio and the left post. Sophomore Kelsey Muniz got the assist with a perfectly-placed cross from the right wing.

“It was awesome,” Pfeiffer said. “We were playing a 4-3-3 and I was kind of withdrawn.

“We settled down, definitely, which is one thing that helped because in the first half it was bad. It was just all over the place, touches were off.

“But we have some fast girls on our team. Jenna [Szczesny] is a speed demon and I think that we picked up the pace with how we moved the ball and that kind of offset them a few times. We scored on a corner and a cross, so I think that helped.”

The Marquette-bound Pfeiffer played a big role in her team’s efforts and she got an assist on the game-winning goal, which came off a corner kick with 12:45 left.

Junior Mia Calamari sent the corner into the middle of the Elk Grove box, where Pfeiffer got a head on it and nudged it forward. Junior defender Carrie Caplin pounced on it and scored.

It was Caplin’s first goal of the season and the first game-winner of her career.

“It hit off a head and then it was bouncing,” Caplin said. “I turned around and the ball was bouncing there and then I just kicked it in because the goalie was on the ground.

“It was nice. I just think we had to crash the net more and get our opportunities into the net and once we got the first goal our momentum started picking up more and more.”

That is an understatement. The Fillies increased their lead to 3-1 just 19 seconds later when Szczesny scored on a breakaway. Szczesny barely missed scoring again when she hit the crossbar with 7:20 to go, but the onslaught didn’t end as Muniz scored off a pass from Calamari to make it 4-1 at the 5:55 mark.

Caplin’s go-ahead goal forced the Grenadiers out of their shell, playing into the Fillies’ hands in an effort to get the equalizer, and it also deflated the home team.

“It definitely gives us motivation and whenever you get scored on you’re always down for a few minutes,” Pfeiffer said. “I think that that period where they were down we kept going and just kind of beating them into the ground.”

That is the kind of mentality Barrington is known for, even in unfamiliar surroundings.

“We knew that we’re not used to playing on grass,” Pfeiffer said. “This isn’t the greatest field so a technical team wasn’t going to win today. It was the team that worked the hardest and dug it out and I think that ended up being us.”

Wary agreed that the Grenadiers lost some of their spark after Caplin’s goal.

“Once they scored, maybe the defenders put their heads down because they thought it was their fault, and it wasn’t,” Wary said.

The Grenadiers return to action when they host Hersey on Wednesday. Barrington hosts Prospect on Wednesday and finishes league play with an away game at Palatine on Friday. The Fillies can clinch a spot in next week’s MSL Soccer Bowl by winning both matches.

“I think it was important for us to win this game, for sure, and just keep working hard this whole week,” Caplin said.