Warriors win for 5th time in 6 games

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By Bill Scheibe

The only thing that stopped Lincoln-Way West sophomore Cori Brennan from scoring more goals Monday night was a second-half switch from forward to sweeper by Warriors coach Jeff Theiss.

“I thought,” Theiss said with a nod, “that it was enough.”

“Yeah, I felt like I had control out on the field for a little bit,” Brennan said, beaming and kidding about being the sweeper for about 10 minutes before subbing out for good. “I was in control back there.”

Up there, too.

All on breakaways, Brennan netted the natural hat trick and ended up with four consecutive goals –including the game-winning tally only 45 seconds into the first half – as host Lincoln-Way West warmed up for a hectic girls soccer work week with a convincing 6-0 nonconference victory over Eisenhower.

After taking Brennan’s place at forward, senior midfielder Kalin Winans also notched a pair of goals for the Warriors (7-9-1), who improved to 4-1 in the last five games. Each of those wins were shutouts, with sophomore goalkeeper Kayla Lojas posting her third straight, this time without having to make a save.

Helped by the benefit of Brennan’s nose for the goal and a whopping 13 corner kicks, West controlled the flow and also received two assists apiece from sophomore forward Kara Winans, senior stopper Ashley Sichak and senior defender Emily Kowalski. Freshman midfielder Katie Brncich added an assist.

By the time Brennan moved back to sweeper for the Eisenhower kickoff, on the heels of her fourth goal of the game, the outcome had been put to bed. And with the onslaught, Brennan matched her total of goals from last year with 14, proving a point that Theiss has been attempting to emphasize of late.

“Don’t get me wrong, she has carried us in scoring,” Theiss said. “But it’s huge to see Cori step up like that and take a game over because I have been telling her, ‘Why should you settle? Why should you settle for one or two goals?’ She has the potential to score like that and put games away early.”

Consider that mission accomplished against Eisenhower, with Kara Winans sending a quick pass ahead that Brennan used to split the Cardinals’ defense like a butter knife to a birthday cake. She then took a smart, hard touch, dribbled in alone on the goalkeeper and pumped a shot into the lower-left corner.

Forty-five seconds and the decision basically was in hand. But with 27:43 left, Brennan boosted the lead to 2-0, converting a Brncich feed by faking right and slipping a shot into the lower-left corner. With 21:51 left, Brennan completed a sequence that saw Lincoln-Way West playing at its very finest.

After Sichak and Kara Winans worked the give-and-go in the middle, Winans sprung Brennan for the breakaway with a short through-ball tap. Brennan again nailed the left corner, and with 31:55 left in the second half, she scored No. 4 by fighting through the defense with a bull-in-a-china-shop approach.

Left, to her, is right.

“I practice that with one of our coaches, where they kick a ball and I just go,” Brennan said. “I do a move, fake the keeper out and shoot to the left corner, to the back post. We knew we had to score right away to get in the game and we couldn’t let them stay around. Sometimes we do that and let down.”

“Cori has been our scoring threat in many games,” Theiss pointed out. “We’ve played a one-forward system a lot, so it was nice to push Kara up there, have them playing off each other a little bit, and I think they’re learning how to play that way. It has been providing our team with the spark lately.”

That scoring spark seemingly passed from Brennan to Kalin Winans. She finished off the header by Sichak of a Kowalski corner kick to give the Warriors a 5-0 lead with 22:41 left in the second half. Winans powered home a 21-yard direct kick into the short-side, upper-left corner with 18:13 left to cap it.

“I love taking dead balls and any direct kicks,” said Winans, who plans on walking on at Illinois State University. “It’s something the coaches have worked on with us in practice, so it was nice to get that opportunity and actually see it go in. And we usually don’t get that many corner-kick opportunities.”

“We really practice our set pieces a lot,” Kowalski pointed out. “We try to take advantage of them, to utilize them, as much as we can. We know it helps get more goals and push forward our momentum.”

Truth be told, the Warriors could have scored several other goals, with junior midfielder Colleen Kinsella and Brennan nailing first-half shots off the post and Kara Winans whipping another shot off the crossbar. Twelve corner kicks during the second half kept West on a constant trajectory toward the box.

“We did a good job pushing forward,” Kowalski said. “Usually, we don’t get as much of a chance to get our backs involved, but I thought today we had a good opportunity to try that out and we did it.”

“Emily has been huge, stepping up for us the last five or six games,” Theiss indicated. “She has been really clamping down on the forwards. Early on, she was giving cushion, but she has bought in big-time, not letting them turn, anticipating and winning a lot of balls before they even reach the forwards.”

Looking forward, West plays host to SouthWest Suburban Conference rival Lincoln-Way Central tonight before traveling Thursday to Lincoln-Way North for the regular-season finale. The Warriors jump right back into the saddle on Saturday morning with a Class 2A regional play-in matchup against Streator.

First things, always, first.

“It’s a huge rivalry for us to play Lincoln-Way Central,” Kalin Winans said. “For the seniors, we went to Central as freshman and sophomores before West opened, so it’s going to be really interesting to play them on the varsity again. We want to show that we’re better than a lot of people give us credit for.”