Late goal hands Griffins the loss vs. Joliet West

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By Bill Scheibe

At her very best, Joliet West’s Morgan Graves goes to the net like a Sherman tank in World War II. But even the Saint Xavier-bound senior forward had to think twice following a ferocious first-half sequence.

It was that bad.

Coming out against Graves, Lincoln-Way senior goalkeeper Emily Boyich collided with a teammate, her head hitting a knee and then the turf with 8:36 remaining in the scoreless half. Knocked unconscious on the play, Boyich was attended to by paramedics and rushed to Silver Cross Hospital in an ambulance.

“That was pretty scary,” Graves said afterward. “She stayed down and we tried to play the ball out of bounds from the middle. At first, I thought she was going to pop up, but she didn’t. I hope she’s OK.”

Those hopes were echoed by everyone in attendance on a sunny Saturday afternoon. In the end, Graves converted the rebound of her own shot that had caromed off the right post with 10:55 left in the second half, sending the visiting Tigers to a 1-0 SouthWest Suburban Blue soccer victory in Frankfort.

Wind wreaked havoc for both Joliet West (3-9-2, 1-2) and Lincoln-Way East (3-9-2, 1-3) – the Griffins playing without senior midfielder Erin Mangia, the North Central College recruit, due to a wedding. Two starters also were benched for tardiness, and second-half injuries began to pile up like dominoes falling.

Plus, backup goalkeepers were the norm rather than the exception, with junior Cristal Kurkowski taking over for Boyich and Joliet West senior Lauren Fowler (8 saves) replacing regular Courtney Robinson, who was at a club volleyball tournament. Boyich contributed 3 saves and Kurkowski finished with a pair.

Nothing, however, was going to stop Graves on the game-winning goal, the seeds of which were planted in the Boyich knockout. Graves slipped in between junior defender Stacy Sons, who was attempting to shield the ball in the box, and the oncoming Kurkowski. The initial shot smacked flush off the post.

Obviously and understandably upset after Boyich was injured, the Griffins seemed tentative in either going to Graves or corralling the loose ball. Graves took advantage of the situation, sprinting with abandon to the rebound and grilling a make-no-mistake-about-it shot into the short-side left corner.

It was that good.

“I didn’t get lucky with the first effort, but luckily it bounced back toward the middle of the goal and I stayed with it,” Graves said. “It pinged right back out and I was in the right spot so I just followed it up.”

“It has been the story of our year,” Lincoln-Way East coach Brian Papa pointed out. “You react different defensively when your backup is in, Stacy’s trying to shield the ball and the next thing you know, the ball hits the post, everyone is laying on the ground, not going for the ball, and they kick it into an open net.”

Actually, Lincoln-Way East opened strong in the first half, forcing Fowler to make solid saves on a direct kick by senior midfielder Kelly McGovern, on a corner kick by senior midfielder Kelsey Kurey and, again, on a header from junior defender Rebecca Dobrich off another free kick by the active McGovern.

The second half saw much of the same, with Dobrich’s header 1:37 in leading to a soft touch by junior defender Stephanie Budzinski on the right post. With 27:34 left, Fowler delivered her best stop, leaping on a Dobrich header that went upper window off a McGovern free kick. In all, the Griffins had 9 corners.

Talk about a constant theme.

“We really have to finish our chances,” Dobrich said. “We know how to get the ball up there and we need to be confident in finishing, and we’re not. We’re kind of hesitating and you can tell with the end result. And I thought I had that one on the header, but I guess it took off instead of going into the net.”

“We had a lot of them,” Kurey noted about the corner kicks. “We were good in the air, and I think the wind helped us a lot and hurt us a lot. The left ones were good and the ones on the right swayed out. It just feels like one mistake by us leads to a goal and we’re definitely not finishing on their mistakes.”

Make no mistake, the scenario surrounding Boyich and the subsequent right knee injury suffered by Joliet West freshman Yasmin Martinez affected the pace. Before Graves scored, the possibility of overtime and a penalty-kick shootout appeared to be as strong as Derrick Rose being the NBA MVP.

“We were shaken up a lot after that,” Kurey said of watching Boyich being carried off. “I think in the second half we got ourselves together more and started playing better again, but for a little while after it happened, we were shaken up. It’s hard to play after something like that, but we got back into it.”

“I think it encouraged us to fight harder,” Dobrich acknowledged. “We really wanted to play well for her. I know she dove for the ball and a girl came from her blind side and her knee hit her head. She was just lying on the ground, and it was scary. She’s a diabetic, too, so we’ve had a couple of scares in the past.”

The scariest shot Kurkowski faced before Graves found the net came with 22:33 left. Senior midfielder Marissa Graves, Morgan’s twin sister, delivered a through-ball feed into the seam that Morgan Graves one-timed centimeters past the near-side left post. Neither team threatened in the latter stages.

“We talked at halftime about how we had to continue playing the simple things and we started to create a couple of opportunities with Morgan,” Joliet West coach Jeff Lundeen said. “The one that went wide was just a great play that went through the middle, then across, and the keeper cut off her angle well.

“It’s just nice to get a win on the board, especially in conference. And Coach Papa always fields a quality team.”

For Papa, though, Saturday was not a field of dreams. Although the Griffins were outshot by a smidge at 13-12, they gained an overwhelming advantage in restarts via a 9-3 edge in corner kicks. Missing Mangia meant Kurey serving the corner kicks, but the final product still remained short of a full-course meal.

More famine than feast.

“Without Erin here we had someone new taking our corners, but we only hit two behind the net,” Papa said. “I think, for most part, we put the ball where we wanted to – it’s up to the girls to finish and we did not. The best one was Dobrich’s header, but that’s the extent of our offense. It’s time to produce.”