Golden Eagles' season opener a success

By Gary Larsen

Sisters Lauren and Shannon Grady transferred to Jacobs after playing soccer at Marian Catholic last season, and the sisters are insinuating their way into the Golden Eagles’ soccer family.

The two goals and one assist that Lauren managed, plus the goal and two assists that Shannon posted in Friday’s 4-2 win over Saint Viator might have sealed the deal.

“Everyone has been so nice and welcoming,” Lauren Grady said. “It doesn’t even feel like we’re new to the team. It feels like we’ve been playing here all along.”

Cassidy Sherman also netted a goal for Jacobs, off a Lizzie Travis assist, and the junior likes the team unity she’s seeing on and off the field thus far.

“We’re all really good friends and I think we bonded on the field today. Even though we’re a pretty new team, we knew where each other were and worked well together,” Sherman said.

It was a big, physical, and cohesive Jacobs (1-0) team that topped Saint Viator (1-2), playing with energy and sharpness on the artificial surface at Olympic Park in Schaumburg.

The Golden Eagles took a 1-0 lead when Shannon Grady found her sister, who then found room to operate across the top of the penalty area, taking a touch to her right along the top of the box before letting fly inside the far post.

Through 40 minutes, Jacobs’ togetherness was a contrast to the Lions’ less cohesive play.

“They’re a bigger team than us but you come to play the game,” Saint Viator coach Mike Taylor said. “I thought in the first half we got pushed off the ball but in the second half I thought we played well. We started to connect to feet.”

“In the first half they were connecting more passes than us,” Saint Viator forward Taylor Skala said. “At halftime our coach told us that we had over thirty-five passes where we just handed them the ball.”

The junior Skala is no secret to any team the Lions play, having netted 38 goals for a team that reached the Class 2A Final Four last year. The athletic forward will play basketball in college next year, but for now she’ll spend the spring trying to shed defenders bent on making her life miserable.

Skala twice tied Friday’s game and almost did it a third time with Jacobs up 3-2, when she busted up the ride side on the dribble and sent a shot just wide of the far post late in the second half.

“We wanted to make sure we stayed pressed on her, and the times we lost her, she punished us,” Jacobs coach AJ Cappello said of Skala, who tied the game at 1-1 with a blast from 18 yards out early in the second half.

Jacobs went up 2-1 when Cassidy Sherman negotiated her way around a defender and placed a perfect shot just under the crossbar from 20 yards out, but Skala fought for a ball at the goalmouth and buried it in a crowd to tie the game at 2-2.

Jacobs’ third goal came on a quick restart sent ahead that wound up at the feet of Lauren Grady, who drove into the box and centered a pass from left to right to sister Shannon, who sent it home from 12 yards out.

The game’s final goal came when Lauren Grady found a seam from 19 yards out and sent a perfect shot under the crossbar to give her side its first two-goal cushion of the day. The lead held to the final buzzer.

“We knew we had to talk. That was our main key, was to talk and communicate,” Lauren Grady said. “And it wasn’t the prettiest soccer but I think we just played hard.”

Cappello was similarly pleased with his side’s effort.

“I’m very happy with the result. We’ve got a long way to go to get to where we want to be, but I’m very happy,” Cappello said. “I liked the fight that I saw today. Lauren and Shannon will help us and we have our core back from last year, of girls that have a good year last year under their belt. I’m cautiously optimistic for sure.

“We’ve got good size and great athleticism, great attitudes, and they’re hard-working. Everything you could ask for.”

The Golden Eagles weren’t shy about sending shots in from long-range. Grady and Catie Sherman tested Saint Viator goalkeeper Melissa Stawicki from distance, the Golden Eagles hit the post on a long shot soon after, and Cassidy Sherman forced the Lions’ keeper to tip a long-range shot over the crossbar early in the second half.

Jacobs keeper Megan Minogue stopped a pair of hard-hit shots at the post and stopped a breakaway shot from Saint Viator’s Chloe Luthringhausen at the post late in the second half.

Cappello also singled out one of his defenders for a fine day’s work put in against the Lions. “I thought Margaret Rivera, our center back, really locked it down for us. One-on-one, I find it hard to believe that any girl is going to get around her and beat her,” Cappello said. “She is as good as it gets in back.

“And Cassidy Sherman runs our midfield. She’s a workhorse and she’s our motor in the middle of the field. She’ll play eighty minutes every game in the middle of the field and she sets the pace for the team.”

While Friday’s game was Jacobs’ season-opener, it was Saint Viator’s third game of the year. The Lions won 1-0 over Buffalo Grove to start the year and lost 2-1 in two overtimes to Fenwick one day earlier.

“Yesterday and today, I don’t think the energy level was as high as it could have been,” Skala said. “Against Buffalo Grove it was high because it was our first game, and we hadn’t beaten them in like five years. And I felt like we had more chances than Fenwick. We just didn’t put them away.”

“Right before Fenwick scored the (winning) goal we had four shots right in front of the goal,” Taylor said. “We didn’t put those chances away but it’s early in the season.

“I’m happy with the way things have gone. We lost some senior leadership so we’re waiting to see who steps up, and we’ll be more of a finesse team this year and let the ball do the work, and be a little bit more nimble around the ball. We’ll get to that point and that’s what these early non-conference games are for, is to work on those things.”

The Lions played without the services of a handful of starters and are working to develop cohesion in back after the graduation of most of its defense from last year’s team.
 
“Katie Gavin is missing, a couple of other girls are missing, but you play with what you’ve got and for twenty to twenty-five minutes there I thought we played well,” Taylor said. “I thought Erin Malone in the back played well, and Kathleen Kane, and (Erin Renee) Murphy sort of dug in and put things together for us.”

 

2011 Jacobs team outlook: Coach AJ Cappello: "Were still a young team, but we return 7 starters from last season. One of our goals as a team is to improve upon our 10-11 record from last season. Again this season we are looking forward to our schedule, we play some top caliber teams between the Pepsi Showcase and the St. Francis Tournament being held over spring break."