Knights rally past Saxons to avenge earlier defeat

 

 

By Eric Van Dril

It proved to be a forgettable play, but it was a sign of things to come.

Prospect forward Martina Kowalczuk beat her defender down the right flank in the first 30 seconds of the second half during Prospect’s 2-1 victory over Schaumburg in Mt. Prospect.

That was a regular occurrence Tuesday afternoon, as the speedy forward beat her defender down the right side of the field at least six times during the first half.

But in the first half, Kowalczuk either quickly fired a speculative shot with the defender closing in on her or chose to try to rifle a cross into the box when she found herself behind Schaumburg’s defense.

Kowalczuk seemed rushed throughout the first half but she seemed calm in the opening seconds of the second half. She collected the ball near the end line, took a confident touch and coolly played the ball off of a Schaumburg defender for a corner kick.

“I guess I freaked out too much, when I could have calmed down and put it into the back of the net easily,” said Kowalczuk, of her first-half opportunities.

“It’s a matter of calming down and thinking about the play, not just take the 30-yard shot. Take time, find your players if you can, or get the shot off.”

The corner kick didn’t result in a goal, or even a shot on goal. But it showed something had changed, that Prospect’s most dangerous offensive player in Tuesday’s MSL crossover match was playing with a sense of calm and appeared ready to take a goal-scoring opportunity when one presented itself.

That goal-scoring opportunity came for the Knights (13-6-2) with 20:31 remaining in the game, after Schaumburg took a 1-0 lead on a goal scored by senior Jenna Eaker.

Three minutes after Eaker scored, junior midfielder Emily Novak collected the ball near the left sideline, turned and rifled a perfectly-placed through ball to Kowalczuk, who had drifted into the center of the field.

The pass beat Schaumburg’s center backs and the Saxons’ offside trap, providing Kowalczuk with a one-on-one opportunity against senior goalkeeper Tressa Palcheck.

After rushing her scoring opportunities in the first half, Kowalczuk used her speed to beat Palcheck to the ball and then confidently struck a low, right-footed shot which rolled into the back of the net and tied the game, 1-1.

“We definitely try to keep Martina on the wide side and I know she’s really fast, so she can get to a lot of balls,” Novak said. “So at that point, I was just trying to play it across the goal mouth and I knew she was somewhere in the area; just hope that she could get to it.”

Two minutes and 13 seconds after Kowalczuk scored the equalizer, Novak put the game out of reach. The junior shifted from her usual spot at center midfield to center forward at times Tuesday.

Kowalczuk is the player who midfielders like Novak and junior Kim Welk looked for most often on Tuesday, yet the game-winning goal came on a pass right up the middle of the field from junior defender Jenny Novak to her twin sister.

Jenny Novak’s through pass was low and well-struck. Emily Novak outran her defender – the defender was playing the high line which Schaumburg used effectively in the Saxons’ 2-0 victory over Prospect on April 5 – and collected the ball.

She was 1-on-1 with Palcheck and, given her knowledge of Palcheck’s strengths, the junior knew her best chance of scoring was to keep the ball low.

“I’ve seen her play a couple of other times, through club and the last time we played Schaumburg she came out a lot,” Emily Novak said. “She’s very good in the air. I knew I just had to keep it on the ground, not in the air, because that’s where her hands were.”

Novak kept the ball low with Palcheck standing near the edge of her 18-yard-box, in the attempt to cut down Novak’s shooting angles. She struck a hard shot with her right foot. The ball rolled past Palcheck and into the back-left corner of the net.

“The idea of the composure, certainly with Emily on that second one to calmly play that through, shows what kind of finisher she is,” Prospect coach Tom Froats said.

“In regards to those kinds of things, I think it just comes with repetition and experience. The more we get those opportunities in the game, I think the better we’re able to handle them.”

Froats added: “Now, toward the end of the season, we’re able to see those growths that we’ve seen. We played Schaumburg a while back, and I know they’re nicked up and they’re maybe not at 100 percent, but we wanted to do was show better this game and look for a better result than we got in the first match.

“The fact that we were able to do that… I think is a nice confidence booster for us moving into the postseason.”

After Schaumburg beat the Knights 2-0 on April 5, a major point of emphasis in preparing for Tuesday’s MSL crossover was trying to beat the Saxons’ high offside line and the Knights were successful in doing that.

They generated two goals by beating the high offside line, and their offense was able to create a number of quality opportunities.

“We worked on the defense stepping up, and then us being able to play the ball through and having the outsides come in and look for the cross,” said Emily Novak, regarding how Prospect worked in practice to attack the offside line.

Kowalczuk added: “We’ve practiced (beating the high line) a lot more in practice and gotten used to that offside line. And then in the first game, we were all getting used to each other and everything. We wouldn’t talk to each other. But now, if we saw each other offsides, we’d help each other communicate.”

Prospect’s defense didn’t play a high offside line. Instead, it kept its formation strong in front of senior goalkeeper Eileen McTigue and limited the Saxons to just two shots on goal in the second half.

Novak’s goal gave Prospect a 2-1 advantage with 18:18 remaining in the game, and the team’s defense – often comprised of Jenny Novak, sophomore Maggie Sullivan, senior Rachel Suarez, sophomore Rosie Pettenuzzo, sophomore Allison McCabe, senior Lauren Rickett and senior Hannah Trezise – all played confidently in front of McTigue.

Prospect regularly kept Jenny Novak, Pettenuzzo and McCabe back on defense, a trio of players listed as either a midfielder or a forward on Prospect’s roster.

But with junior center back Trisha Benson (ACL) out for the season and junior right back Elena Cukurs out 1-2 weeks with tendinitis in her heel, Prospect now has a thinner bench and will look to that skilled trio to provide its backbone heading into the playoffs.

“I used the analogy of the Bulls today, with the fact that they’re thin with their personnel,” Froats said. “But it’s the next player up. I thought, today, that was very evident. No matter who was in there, they did a nice job and gave their best effort.

“That’s all we’ve been asking all season. (Prospect has) kind of a thinner bench than we’d like, but we certainly weren’t thin at heart. We played strong and we did what we needed to do to get the job done today.”

The 2-1 victory provides the Knights with momentum heading into the postseason. Prospect, the No. 4 seed in the Mundelein Sectional, begins its postseason by playing Palatine at 5 p.m. on May 14.

They will play for the second time this season after Prospect won 4-3 on April 4. The teams’ rematch will take place in a Warren Regional semifinal.

“We’re going to definitely work on keeping the ball outside and crossing in, and probably still be aggressive in the air,” said Emily Novak, on how she anticipates the Knights will prepare for Palatine.

“But we’re probably going to go back, look at some film we have and then see what our weaknesses were in that game, what their weaknesses were and try to play off of that.”