Knights struggle to get dangerous at Barrington

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By Darryl Mellema

Results certainly matter, and no one on Barrington's sideline was quibbling with Wednesday's 1-0 victory over Prospect in both teams' Mid-Suburban Conference opener from the standpoint of wins and losses.

But solid, effective play also matters and four matches into the season, this is an area in which the Fillies know they must improve.

The match suffered from long arid stretches where neither penalty area was much-troubled by opposition attacks. And if not for an opportunistic Sarah Fox goal 14 seconds before halftime, trying to divine which team was going to score would have been a very difficult exercise.

“From a results perspective, we did what we needed to do,” Barrington coach Ryan Stengren said. “But for ourselves, we need to play better and be better than this. That's the frustrating part of this. You can see bits and pieces of it, but we can play better.”

Through his post-match discussion, Stengren kept bringing up the same word in different forms: frustration.

“You can see it, we're not executing in the offensive third,” Stengren said. “It's frustrating. I've said that three or four times. But if you could hear me from the sideline during the game, I was frustrated.”

Prospect (1-2, 0-1 MSL) played its first game in Illinois after a trip to North Carolina where they played and trained. Like Barrington (3-1, 1-0), the Knights struggled to find their feet in Wednesday's match.

“We did,” Prospect coach Tom Froats said. “I think as the game wore on, there were moments where we were comfortable on the ball and we were able to possess and knock the ball around and move it forward. But we never really could get dangerous in the final third, and that is certainly an area where will we need to improve.”

It took nearly 15 minutes for the match to open up, and when it did, Barrington found its feet first. Emily Hyde fed Molly Pfeiffer from the center of the field to the right and Pfeiffer's shot was saved by Megan McCabe.

Moments later, Prospect responded and Lauren McNab forced a Kelly Pedersen to make a save.

The match continued to struggle to carve openings, but midway through the half Kathryn Avedon moved up from left back and sent a pass into space that Prospect's defense cleared.

Barrington surged again with 12 minutes left in the half and Emily Hyde forced a save from McCabe with a 30-yard free kick from the center of the field.

Prospect briefly arrested the Fillies' pressure but was soon back under pressure. This time, from a Molly Pfeiffer corner kick, McCabe saved the ball to Catie Curran, who thought her shot had crossed the line, though the officials ruled otherwise.

Barrington gained its precious opening goal with a move that began with a half-minute left in the half. Sara Condon passed to Dana Nelson, whose ball toward the goal was cleared to Fox, who shot into the net for a 1-0 Fillies' halftime lead.

“We took a lot of shots up top, which we wanted to do,” Fox said. “They didn't turn out as well as we wanted, but at least we were taking the shots. That's the first step toward getting better results.”

While the immediate buildup to Fox's goal was perhaps not the way teams draw up their corner kick plays, the fierce shot with which the senior scored was certainly the way every forward wants to find the back of the net.

“It kind of hit off some people and it came to the top of the box and I was placed right,” Fox said. “I didn't even think about it. I just shot it. It's awesome to get some of those.”

From a Prospect perspective, the goal was the result of not dealing adequately with the corner kick as it came across.

“We talked about the fact that if there's a free ball against you in the penalty area, if the other team gets to it first, it's not going to result in good things,” Froats said. “And that's what happened there. For the rest of the game, we were aggressive in knocking balls out. It only happened once, and Barrington being a quality side, they finished it.”

The second half started with Barrington ascendant and with Prospect trying to make the most of limited possession. While Barrington was unable to create many clear-cut chances itself, the ball was in the Knights’ half of play almost exclusively.

“We had more energy in the second half than we did in the first half,” Stengren said. “In the first half, it seemed like we were almost going through the motions. We were both feeling each other out as teams. For us, we were sitting in too much, like we wanted to defend and counter attack.”

That defensive attitude was not something Stengren said he wanted his team to carry through the match, and the early second-half surge was a response by the Fillies to the halftime discussions.

“We need to be more composed at the top of the box and we need to be able to hit our target more,” Stengren said “Realistically, we need to put teams away. Otherwise you run the risk of having a referee mistake or a silly mistake on us and then it's a ballgame again. For as much of the game as we had, it was still 1-0.”

McCabe had to scramble to save from Sara Condon 10 minutes into the second half. Condon's long-range effort was going to sneak in at the right post before McCabe got her palm to the ball. The defense scrambled the ball to safety.

Fifteen minutes into the half, Barrington's Emily Hyde sent a long shot over the crossbar. Minutes later, she had an effort saved by McCabe and shortly after, sent a weak shot that McCabe collected off the Turf.

“One of the things that I've got to remember to tell myself is that offense is the hardest part of the game,” Stengren said. “It's easy to defend. We've got to get better in the offensive third of the field. There's no doubt about that.”

Even though they are still putting things together, Barrington is still 3-1 and 1-0 in the MSL.

“We're trying to incorporate everyone,” Fox said. “We have a couple of freshmen on the team. We're from different places coming to the team and we're different ages and we're trying to get the chemistry going. It's as important off the field as it is on the field. It starts in preseason and it develops throughout the season. We're in a good spot for it to be awesome at the end of the season.”

The pressure eventually led to an Agnes Stankiewicz shot on goal with 11 minutes to play. Barrington goalie Kelly Pedersen made the save.

“We are doing some good things,” Froats said. “I like what I have seen. We are able to possess the ball in midfield and to move it forward. But I think we are looking forward to being maybe a little more creative in the offensive third.”

Froats liked that his team did carve some opportunities with the possession it had, and said more opportunities will surely come as the season progresses.

“There were times where we were sitting 30, 25 or 20 yards from the goal and we didn't shoot and we looked for the pass,” Froats said. “We need to be a little more aggressive with our shot-taking.”

Of the players who came into the lineup for Prospect and added energy to their performance, one player who stood out was freshman forward Elena Cukurs, who played on the left side of the Knights' forward triangle, proved solid with her tackling and also transitioned into attack.

“She's a freshman in her third varsity game, and she shows a lot of composure,” Froats said. “I think she's going to get a lot better, certainly, with every match that she plays. She has some tools that can certainly help us in the long run.”