Burke-Pullen connection gets Benet 1-0 win

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By Dan Santaromita

After the first ten minutes of Benet and Carmel’s match on Thursday, it looked like the goals would keep coming.

Both teams had a pair of great chances to score early on, but Benet’s sixth-minute goal stood as the only one in a tense affair to give the Redwings the 1-0 win Thursday night in Mundelein, in the East Suburban Catholic Conference opener for both teams.

Barely more than a minute into the match, Carmel’s Ashley Orth had a breakaway but Benet goalkeeper Claire Munaretto came off her line to make the save. The Redwings countered well with Lexi Liber on the left wing, but Carmel’s defense scrambled to make the stop.

Not long after, Madie Burke took a free kick and found Brittany Pullen at the far post, whose header snuck inside the post for what proved to be the game-winner.

“All of her corner kicks are just so consistent,” Pullen said of Burke. “They’re awesome this year. I just found the ball and kind of placed it in.”

Pullen almost headed home again in the second half but the ball sailed just high. The senior is no stranger to playing in the air.

“It’s definitely a big part of my game, especially since we have kind of a smaller team for our conference and sectional,” Pullen said. “I’m the tallest on the team and I think it’s important to win those 50/50 balls. This game they went harder to a lot of the balls than we may have, but definitely finding balls in the air is one of my stronger points.”

Carmel came close to responding nearly immediately. Kelly Trillhaase snuck into the box and squared the ball to Orth, who was unmarked about 12 yards from goal, but Orth’s first touch rolled just wide.

After all that open play in the first several minutes, both teams settled down defensively and neither team had a great scoring chance the rest of the half.

Benet coach Henry Wind was frustrated that his team didn’t take more shots at goal despite having possession and creating chances. Forward Jamei Borges agreed.

“I think we weren’t testing their goalie enough,” Borges said. “You have to shoot to score. We definitely have to bring that to the next game.”

Benet received the halftime message from their coach and took a few more rips in the second half, but struggled to hit the target.

Orth continued to cause problems for Benet’s backline, but Munaretto (9 saves) played well in net to hold the shutout.

“Ashley did a good job,” Carmel assistant coach Paul Bunnell said. “She had a very, very hard work rate tonight. We like her up front obviously. We just need to do a better job of working with her on the balls that are there.”

Shannon Jung played well in the midfield for the Corsairs and Sarah McHugh was busy at the back holding the Redwings to just one goal, but Carmel couldn’t generate offense other than Orth.

“I don’t think that our offense played as strongly as they can,” Bunnell said. “I thought we missed some connection of passes up front. I think the midfield played well, but our offense just couldn’t put the passes together that we needed to make the efforts and finish off the balls tonight.”

Bunnell credited the Redwings for connecting on their passes better, resulting in more possession. Benet’s Maria Schwabe did well to play the ball forward in the first half from left back to combine with Borges’ work rate in midfield and Katie Kaufmann’s play on the right wing. Other than a few sloppy moments down the stretch Benet was in control on the fast surface at Carmel.

Wind was pleased with his team’s possession play, saying they had good composure.

“We didn’t panic, we didn’t just kick the ball,” Wind said. “We held onto the ball. That was a very big plus for us today.

“We played OK, not great. We can do a lot better. We had control at certain times. Other times we just made some dumb mistakes, but overall, hey, it’s a win.”

Benet has aspirations of repeating as ESCC champs and the win over Carmel is a great start to conference play for them.

“I think it was a really big game for us, especially Carmel who’s our rival,” Borges said. “We usually don’t face them until the end of the season so to start off our conference season with a win was big. We played pretty well I thought, but like our first season game we weren’t finishing as well. We had a week off since (the St. Francis tournament), but overall I thought we played hard and were able to finish the game.”

Both teams have home conference games on Saturday with Carmel hosting Marist and Benet hosting Joliet Catholic.