Chicagoland Soccer

Cougars stay unbeaten in MSL at Rolling Meadows

By Gary Larsen

Playing without Kelly Lomas on any soccer field is not a place that Conant’s backline wants to be, but that’s where the Cougars found themselves in a Mid-Suburban League game in Rolling Meadows on Saturday.

Lomas was asked to leave Saturday’s game at 62 minutes after a tripping call elicited a red card from the middle official.

Fortunately for the Cougars (13-2) they had a 3-0 lead on the scoreboard, Lindsay Fillingim in net, and a dangerous attack that just kept getting it done in an eventual 5-0 win.

“We had to pick it up because that’s a big loss for us,” Fillingim said. “(Lomas) is a captain and a leader back there, cleans up most of our cuts through, and you saw a couple more balls get through there than normal after she left the game.”

As they’ve been all season, Kaitlin Chiero, Courtney Raetzman, and the Conant attack were dangerous from start to finish, though not in the exact way they like to be dangerous, playing on a grass field for only the fourth time this season.

“With grass we don’t really get to play our game,” Raetzman said. “We did our best but on grass it always ends up being a more direct game. And we like to play it simple on the ground. We never want to be too confident and we came here not knowing what to expect. We haven’t seen (Rolling Meadows) play and they’ve been doing pretty good.”

Raetzman continued her rampage against opposing defenses this season, netting a hat-trick that gave her 16 goals on the season. Chiero sent Raetzman through with a long diagonal pass from midfield and Raetzman went in alone on Mustangs keeper Sarah Bohac, 26 minutes into the game.

In their 2-0 win over Rockford-Boylan one day prior, the Cougars’ Drew Wentzel scored on a blast that caromed in off the underside of the crossbar. Alyssa Altosino repeated the feat on Saturday, ripping a shot from 20 yards out at 33 minutes that also found the bottom of the crossbar and landed behind the goal line.

Conant’s Sammie van de Linde twice reached the end line and sent in dangerous feeds in the first 40 minutes. Chiero sent the first just wide of the post and Bohac cut off the second.

Raetzman made it 3-0 four minutes into the second half when she found space to launch a shot from 16 yards out, before Lomas left the game at 62 minutes. Fillingim saved a crisp head shot in close taken by the Mustangs’ Alex Partipilo just one minute after Conant went down a player.

Fillingim fielded a hard-hit one hopper sent from distance by the Mustangs’ Anne Marie Lynch, and at 68 minutes the senior keeper charged off her line and took a shot off a Mustangs’ foot out near the top of the penalty area.

“(Fillingim) had a great save on a half-breakaway, coming out to get a hand on it,” Conant coach Jason Franco said. “It’s one of those things where you want everyone to do something, and Lindsay got her work in today.

“I thought Courtney played outstanding and she has been. And I thought we played solid in back. Kelsey Foss had a really nice game for us, Drew Wentzel has been really playing well, and our center mids did a really nice job today. Chrissy Rosales had a nice game even though she’s banged up.”

Fillingim also tipped her hat to the girls in back for Conant, among them Foss, Lomas, Drew Wentzel, and Kim Trinco. Conant has only given up 8 goals in 15 games this season.

“People tell me I need to start taking them out to dinner once in a while, to thank them for it,” Fillingim said. “Personally, I think we have the best defensive line in the area. We’ve given up one goal in the conference. I don’t have to do much work most of the time.”

After Fillingim did her part to preserve her team’s 10th shutout of the year, Chiero scored and Raetzman completed the trifecta in the game’s final minutes.

The Cougars’ three-day span of games began with a 2-0 loss to Naperville North on Thursday, a 2-0 win over Rockford-Boylan Friday, and Saturday’s win at Rolling Meadows.

“We had a rough one against Naperville North,” Franco said. “They had a lot of girls out so I thought that was a poor result for us. They scored on sort of a fluky breakaway and a 40-yard chipper so we wanted to bounce back and play well.

“We played our best game of the year against Rockford-Boylan and I was hoping today we’d come out and continue. It was nice to get out on grass today and see what we could do because our whole sectional is on grass.”

Raetzman wasn’t happy with the way her side competed against Naperville North.

“I don’t know if it was a lack of energy or if we were a little too confident,” she said. “After playing the way we’ve been playing we can’t take those steps back. But we’ve only had one or two games where we didn’t play our game so it hasn’t come up too much.”

The week ahead for the Cougars features games against Prospect, Palatine, and Barrington, with decisive MSL ramifications attached.

“If we beat Prospect and Palatine, we clinch regardless of what else happens with Fremd,” Franco said. “And that’s what we want to do because we have Barrington on Saturday and we don’t want that game to matter. Lomas does a lot for us and we’ll miss her on Monday (vs. Prospect), but if we play like we did today and yesterday I think we’ll be fine.”