Chicagoland Soccer

Marian shuts down Warriors in SCC showdown

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By Darryl Mellema

There were certainly enough dark clouds floating over Wheaton Academy’s girls soccer field on Thursday, but despite the Warriors’ 4-0 loss to Marian, Scott Marksberry was very willing to talk about some silver linings.

And he discussed some of them in a lengthy post-match discussion away from prying ears. With two weeks left in the regular season, the need to see positives, even in heavy defeats, was important.

“If we look to two years ago, when we won state, we got beat 5-0 by Homewood-Flossmoor,” Marksberry said. “It was just a game where everything they kicked went into the goal. We played a little flat, like we did today. That year, they used that game as motivation going forward and then we rattled off 13 straight wins and won the state title. We get to make a decision now which direction we want to go. But we have a lot of girls still from that team and I’ve got a feeling we’re going to go in the right direction.”

The match left St. Francis as the only Suburban Christian Conference team unbeaten in conference play. St. Francis travels to Wheaton Academy for a game on Monday, and Marian will meet the Spartans on May 12 in a game that could have the SCC title on the line.

And all after the Hurricanes started the season 1-6.

“It was a huge result,” Marian coach Kristian Rockall said. “Today was a real big test for us. We were coming in as the underdog on paper and we were telling them before the game that we hadn’t proved anything yet. I was saying that we hadn’t beaten a top, top quality team and today we did.”

Rockall said he knew his team needed to be at its best in order to defeat Wheaton Academy and he felt they met that test.

“I think every one of our players played to be the best of their ability,” Rockall said. “Everyone was working hard together and communicating and it was close to our best performance.”

This week has been remarkable in that Wheaton Academy played twice. Any more rain and Thursday’s match would have been in jeopardy -- something to which the Warriors have become much too accustomed this spring.

“We’ve had six cancellations so far,” Marksberry said. “It’s been a cold and sloppy spring. We train indoors half the time and we try to find a place out here when we can. But with all natural grass and the amount of rain that we have, it gets difficult because we don’t want to tear up all our fields.”

And Marksberry was certainly happy to have not had to cancel Thursday’s match.

“At this point, it’s good to get any match in,” he said. “Every time we get out here, it’s a learning experience for us. We had a chance to learn some things today, some things we’ll learn from going forward.”

The match opened brightly for Wheaton Academy (6-4, 4-1), with Crystal Thomas and Ally Witt forging shooting chances in the first 15 minutes of play. Then Marian (10-7, 5-1) got its offense in-gear and Kristen Morency had to step up with three key saves to keep the match scoreless.

That deadlock finally ended when Harmony Kendzora scored with 19:02 left in the half. From that point, the visitors increasingly pinned the Warriors into their defensive half.

“I fell like their defensive midfield and their defenders, together – they won that battle,” Marksberry said. “It was through their back that they controlled and we struggled to get numbers forward. Their defense was very organized and we struggled to get numbers up.”

As at the start of the game, Wheaton Academy opened the second half in a attacking posture, and Witt worked into the penalty box after 5 minutes of play before sending a weak shot on goal.

But Marian hit back after 13 minutes when Kendzora scored her second goal. Two minutes later, Laura LeFevour ran onto a through ball and scored to make the score 3-0.

Even down 3-0, the Warriors continued pressing for a goal. Witt headed wide with 11 minute to play and Wheaton Academy kept trying to find ways through the Hurricanes’ defense.

But Kendzora finished the scoring, and completed her hat trick, with 1:17 left.

Despite picking the ball from her net four times, Warriors goalie Kristen Morency was one of her team’s star players. She made a string of saves through the match, including one late in the match where she got a hand to a blistering shot and deflected it to the crossbar.

“She’s a very good keeper,” Marksberry said. “I think she misjudged one of those in the second half and maybe on one of those she thought a teammate was going to scoop it up, just some miscommunication that led to some of those.”