Vikings draw with St. Charles East
By Darryl Mellema

 

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In pursuit of perfection, Geneva hit a bit of a bump in the road in Wednesday’s 1-1 tie with St. Charles East on the opening night of the Saints’ 23rd annual Rose Augsburg Drach soccer tournament.

Time and again, the Vikings gained possession, built through the midfield and then saw play break down, either through overelaboration in that midfield area or when trying to transition into the attack.

And despite the good things she saw, this drive to be better than they needed to be left Vikings coach Megan Owens somewhat frustrated at the end of the 80 minutes.

“We’ve just got to shoot the ball,” Owens said. “We possess, possess, possess and we look for the perfect shot. We’ve got to get out there and hammer it home. That’s the bottom line. We’ve got to stop looking for the perfect shot and just create shots.”

Don’t mistake – Owens didn’t feel the Vikings (6-1-1) had played poorly. The team did recover from an early goal to equalize and earn the tie, and the defense kept most Saints attacking efforts from troubling the goal.

“I think we did all right,” Owens said. “We moved the ball well and we were pretty strong defensively. I think we are still trying to figure what’s going on in the net, who’s going to get that starting spot.”

But Owens would like her team to accept that imperfection, if it leads to a goal, is actually better than trying to make every build-up look like a highlight video.

“We’re very ‘finesse,’” Owens said. “We want the perfect touch and the perfect ball and that’s not going to happen at this level. You’ve got to able to finish, to be able to create and to sacrifice to go all out in the box.”

St. Charles East opened the scoring after 10 minutes when Darcy Cunningham closed down the Vikings keeper on the end line to the right of the goal, took advantage of a poor touch and stole the ball, moved toward the goal and then shot into the vacated goal.

That goal was only the third given up by Geneva this season. The other two came in the team’s 2-0 loss to O’Fallon.

“I don’t think the goal was in any way because of a defensive breakdown,” Owens said. “We’ve got one senior (Caitrin Griffin) back there and three sophomores (Tory Herbst, Annie Waldoch and Molly Stanfa) and they all played together last year. They’ve got a lot of chemistry and they’re just solid players who play smart. I’m proud of the way they play every game. There’s a reason we’ve only let in three goals so far.”

This time, however, Geneva got an equalizing goal, and it came at nearly the midpoint of the first half. Michaela Loebel sent a ball from the right side of midfield toward Hope Goodman, who was positioned at the top of the penalty area on the left wing. Goodman brought the ball under control and hit a shot that hit the inside of the right post and went into the net.

“I saw the ball right before it landed in front of me,” Goodman said. “The whole time I was thinking I had to keep it down and get it to the corner past the goalie. I listened to myself and it went in.”

Goodman said she could feel the difficulties the team was having moving into threatening positions offensively.

“Their defense was strong,” Goodman said. “They have big girls in the back who are strong. We moved the ball well but in the attacking third, we’re just not aggressive enough yet. We’ve just got to take more shots, get open and take more shots instead of being perfect.”

As a team, the Vikings enjoy moving forward, as evidenced by the 28 goals they have scored in eight matches.

“We love getting forward and normally we get a lot of shots off,” Goodman said. “We’re just struggling a little bit right now. We take a lot of shots from outside but we need to get more aggressive in the box.”

In the second half, Molly Axen got free in the penalty area on two occasions for the Vikings and Catherine Allon had a header that went over the crossbar. But despite having perhaps a slight edge in possession, the Vikings were unable to sustain prolonged pressure on the Saints goal.

“We played well through most of the game,” Owens said. “I think we got a little tired at the end. But I think we had the upper hand for most of the game. We’ve just got to finish – to let the score reflect all our hard work.”

The number of things going right for the Vikings far outnumbers the areas in which the team struggles. On Wednesday, the difficult areas all manifested over 80 minutes.

“Our passing is great and our possession is great and our communication is great and defensively we’re solid,” Owens said.

Eight matches into the season, Owens knows her team will improve – as all the good teams do. The Vikings are just entering a very difficult stretch. After a Thursday match with Schaumburg and a Saturday tournament finale with Naperville Central, the Vikings play St. Charles East in their annual Upstate Eight Conference River Division match. Matches with Neuqua Valley, St. Charles North and Conant are other highlights in the next two weeks of play.

“We have a tough three weeks,” Owens said. “If you look at the number of teams that we play in the next three weeks that are in the Top 10 in the state, and it’s a welcome to varsity for the kids. We have a tough schedule because it pays off in the long run. We’ve had a strong start but now the big dogs are here.”