Wildcats fall to St. Francis in season opener
By Chris Walker

One thing is for sure regarding St. Francis and West Chicago this spring - both teams will have to replace a lot of scoring.

The Spartans need to replace Andi Matichak, who scored 82 goals over the past three seasons, while the Wildcats have to find a way to replenish the productivity provided last spring my Meagan Radloff, who set school record with 25 goals.

The two squads met for their respective season openers on Saturday afternoon, and in a match where neither team did much on offense, the Spartans won 1-0 on a penalty kick from Taylor Bucaro midway through the first half.

"If there's not a handball there, then that's a goal anyway," St. Francis coach Jim Winslow said. "She kind of moved across and hit it, put her hands in front to stop it. If she doesn't do that, we bury it anyway."

Bucaro was pleased that she took advantage of the great opportunity to put her team ahead.

"I just saw it as an opportunity to get the game started for us," Bucaro said. "It's always better to start with the lead instead of having to chase all game later on."

Although Matichak and her 20 goals in 2011 are missing from this year's roster that doesn't mean the Spartans have little returning. On the contrary, they return most of the starters from last year's 18-7-2 that came up just short of advancing to state, dropping a 2-0 decision to Wheaton Academy in Class 2A supersectional play.

"The goal now after getting to supersectionals is to get through it and get down there," Winslow said. "We have three of four on defense, and our goalkeeper back and overall about two-thirds of the team is back."

The good news for the Spartans is that Winslow believes the team is ahead of schedule from last year. That certainly says a lot for a team that just missed advancing to the state finals.

"I'm more familiar with the kids and they're more familiar with the system and what we want to do now," he said. "Last year when we played these guys, I don't know if we had a shot on goal in the first half, or more than two or three in the second half."

In Saturday's match, it was the Wildcats who struggled the most with possessing the ball and creating scoring chances.

"I think our nerves ate us up a little bit," West Chicago coach J. Cesar Gomez said. "We've been doing a great job of possessing the ball in practice and that just didn't click today. We didn't possess at all."

The Wildcats also might've been trying to do too much.

"We didn't have much combination passing today. It just got away from us," Gomez said. "A lot of these kids have played with each other before, which is good for competition, but I think they over analyzed things a bit."

A home match against Schaumburg awaits on Monday night for the Wildcats so there won't be a learning curve.

"I think we'll be good once we adjust and every team goes through growth at the beginning of the season," West Chicago senior forward Bianca Navejas said. "We just hope to get better quickly as we continue to play."

They also need to play their game, utilizing their own talents, rather than trying to turn into a player like Radloff.

"I've been getting a lot of the 'you have to fill Meagan Radloff's shoes' but I do hope to step up big this year," West Chicago junior forward Andie Lazzerini said. "We're just starting over, adjusting to playing together, and in the second half I think we played more of a possession game and started to get into a groove which is a good sign."

Jenna Ditusa recorded the shutout for the Spartans, but wasn't truly tested.

"I think the biggest difference was that I don't remember Jenna having to make any saves today," Winslow said. "There was some cleanliness to how we played. Taylor (Van Thournout), our youngest player, was offsides a few times, but she's knew to playing up top and she'll learn."