Porters prepare for Iowa trip with shutout win at the 'Brook

 

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By Curt Herron

Members of Lockport Township's squad literally walked off the field and stepped onto an awaiting coach bus on Thursday.

That's not really the type of scene that you expect to see when two teams who are in the same conference are competing.

But in a week where not much was happening for the Porters, or very many other area teams for that matter, the comfortable bus was a good sign.

The reason for that is that the bus was just about to take LTHS to Burlington, Iowa, where it was to compete in the Adidas Tournament of Champions.

If all goes well for coach Todd Elkei's team, they'll play three matches this weekend, with one on Friday evening and two others on Saturday morning.

After not getting the chance to compete in a week, the Porters made the most of their first action back to assure themselves of a pleasant bus ride.

LTHS scored a pair of goals in the opening half at Bolingbrook and made it stand in a 2-0 SouthWest Suburban Conference Blue victory over the Raiders.

Lexi Cozzi got for the first score in the 13th minute and Ally Brehm added the winner's other goal during the 37th minute of the cold and wet afternoon.

"We hadn't been outside in a week and it's impossible to get gym space now," Elkei said. "So it was nice to finally get out there again to get us ready for the competition that we're going to see this weekend.

"We entered this tournament to let these kids know that in order to raise the expectations, we have to expose them to some of the top teams in the Midwest, which is eventually a place that want to get to.

"Another one of our goals for the weekend is that we'd like to be able to bond as a team. It's still a process for us since we need to see the good competition and play at the same speed that they're playing."

With the win, the Porters improved to 9-3 overall and 4-1 in the SWSC Blue while the Raiders fell to 10-5-1 overall and 1-2 in the league.

It was the squad's sixth shutout in seven matches, with a lone goal coming in their last action eight days earlier in a 1-0 loss to Carl Sandburg.

The Porters hoped to meet Homewood-Flossmoor, where Elkei enjoyed good success, on Tuesday, but that match was the latest victim of the lousy weather conditions.

As for Friday's Bracket C opener in Burlington, the Porters defeated Springfield Catholic, last year's Class 1 state champion in Missouri, by a 2-1 score.

Lockport met Peoria Christian, a 4-0 winner over Francis W. Parker on Saturday morning in the semifinals before competing in a place match after that.

"I told the girls that we were going to use our warmup as a practice since we hadn't been on the field in a week," Elkei said.

"It's been hard to get a consistency or a flow going because of the weather. But it's the same for everybody, so you can't use that as an excuse, you just have to battle through it.

"We had a couple of chances to put things away in the second half. Some of our kids have the mentality that being up 2-0 is good enough but on every chance you get you need to have a good strike on goal."

Keeper Alyssa DeYoung faced few serious threats as the visitors utilized plenty of different defenders in preserving the latest clean sheet.

LTHS collected the only score that it would eventually need when Cozzi connected following an assist from Jessica Liutkus.

The Porters got a boost before the break after Brehm put in a short try that began with a cross from Gina Collesano that Kelly Wetherald got a touch on.

Although the visitors weren't able to find the net again, they did a good job of limiting the good scoring chances that the Raiders had.

One of those came about two minutes into the second half when DeYoung was able to stop a liner on a free kick by Katy Rees.

Collesano just missed scoring a goal of her own in the 49th minute when the Raider keeper managed to get a hand on a shot attempt.

The Raiders had their last best chance in the 63rd minute when Karen Quintana took a close-range shot that DeYoung dove for the save.

Shortly after that, Cassie Pullia had a line drive deflected away and then fired in a long free kick that bounced off of the crossbar.

"It was good for us to be able to finally play a game before we go to Iowa," Collesano said. "We've been doing pretty well so far and we're working together as a team and connecting with our passes.

"We started off the season a little bit shaky because we had girls from all different levels. But we've worked really hard during practice and that's helped us to come together really well.

"We're really excited about playing in Iowa since we'll get the chance to maybe have some colleges look at us. We're going to really have to play hard out there and try to be quicker to the ball."