Chicagoland Soccer

Tired Spartans get it done vs. Rosary
By Darryl Mellema

After the 80 high-intensity minutes St. Francis needed during its Wednesday match against Wheaton Academy, the last thing the Spartans wanted was to have to go the extra few miles of running in Thursday’s match at Rosary.

But the Royals are a match for everyone this season and forced St. Francis to find those higher gears again. The good news for Spartans fans was that their team did just that – recovering after allowing a match-tying goal to earn a 2-1 Suburban Christian Conference victory.

“You always wonder, and I put this point to them in practice last week, that you’re going to get into a fight at some point and how are you going to respond to it?” St. Francis coach Jim Winslow said. “Are you going to get out of the way or are you going to push through. Last night, they pushed through it and tonight they did the same.”

The Spartans looked tired on Thursday, and they were tired. Prior to Wednesday’s 2-1 defeat to in what proved to be the deciding match for the conference championship, St. Francis played Tuesday and defeated Immaculate Conception 9-0.

“Besides the fact that we’re all a little heart-broken about yesterday, we’re all sore,” St. Francis defender Kate Robak said. “We played Tuesday as well, so we’re a little beaten up.”

As tough as playing those two matches was physically, it was worse emotionally. St. Francis (15-3, 9-1) knew that if it defeated Wheaton Academy, Thursday’s match would have given them a chance to clinch a tie for the conference title. In fact, Rosary (15-5, 7-2) would have then had a chance to share the title had it defeated the Spartans.

There wasn’t any dearth of competitiveness in Rosary’s Senior Night contest, however. St. Francis defended solidly and worked the ball toward the Royals’ goal, though without the precision it might have had if the team had been fully-rested.

“The entire team is pretty beat up,” Bucaro said. “We are pretty upset about (Tuesday.) But we played our hearts out. Today, we came out from the loss knowing what we had to do. We all know our body conditions and that we weren’t fully ready for this game. But we did what we had to do.”

Five minutes into the second half, Sydney Fox worked the ball around the corner of the left wing and sent a pass along the ground into the six-yard box. Kaitie Bucaro met that cross at the right post and scored from close range to put the Spartans ahead.

“I love playing the game with Sydney,” Bucaro said. “We play great together up top. We play together and that’s the best part.”

That lead lasted 2 minutes before a pushing foul in the penalty area led to a penalty kick chance for Rosary. Kaitlin Johnson converted that chance to tie the score.

At this point, St. Francis’ play sharpened. In the 15 minutes after the penalty kick, Fox shot over the bar, Courtenay Hart shot wide, Roback hit a skipping shot from long-range that was saved and a three player move involving Amanda Gaggioli, Bucaro and Andrea Ravlin led to a Ravlin shot that went wide.

Then Bucaro sent a right wing cross toward Gaggioli, who scored the match-winning goal.

“I knew it,” Bucaro said. “I know exactly how (Gaggioli) plays and I knew how she would get to the ball and I knew how it would come across the net.”

Gaggioli’s goal came with 16 minutes left, and while the Spartans continued to attack, the focus moved to how the defense would go about shutting down the match.

That defense, which has only allowed 5 goals this season, proved it was up to the task.

“It was a pretty close game,” Roback said. “There’s always that slight chance they’re going to score and tie it up. Throughout the year, we have been getting better talking and working together, the four of us.”

There was still time for one key save from goalie Jenna DiTusa. That came with just 1 minute to play when she got to a shot that was headed for the upper left corner or her net.

“It showed us, (Tuesday) how well we can play, as a team,” Roback said. “We’re going to be ready to play in a couple of weeks. We’ll hopefully be stronger than we were last night and be ready to beat some teams.”

St. Francis did not play Friday but finishes a busy week and regular season on Saturday with a 3 p.m. match against Sycamore at Glenbard North

“We’re going to do this thing now where everybody needs to rest,” Bucaro said.

With fatigue a factor, the Spartans needed to work the ball amongst themselves on Thursday and they did. Winslow said team play that has involved significant contributions from many of his players is the reason why his squad is 16-3 heading into Saturday’s match with Sycamore.

“If you look at our roster, the number of different players who have stepped up and had impacts in different games is huge,” Winslow said. “That’s the difference between an average team, a good team and a great team.”

After the Sycamore contest. St. Francis has an entire week to rest before it faces Kelvyn Park at De La Salle in the opening round of the IHSA Class 2A tournament.

“I don’t know that we’ll implement that much in the week before the playoffs,” Winslow said. “I’m pretty happy with the way we are doing things. What it sets us up for is a chance to get healthy. We can do some fitness and then we can, for lack of a better word, polish what we do.”

Winslow said the drain of playing 160 minutes of tough, competitive soccer in just over 24 hours showed on Thursday – and that is not a problem that typically occurs during the playoffs.

“It was details that cost us against Wheaton Academy,” Winslow said. “If we can clean those up, now we’re getting into a schedule in the playoffs where you play and have a practice and then play again.”

Getting solid play from DiTusa is nothing new for the Spartans. But with the number of blowout wins St. Francis has had, truly judging her capabilities has been difficult. She proved she was up to the task on Thursday.

“Last night, we gave up 2 goals and tonight we gave up 1 and that was a PK,” Winslow said. “We gave up only 4 goals in conference and 8 all season. We have been solid the whole season. There are times when the only time (DiTusa) is touching the ball is when we’re playing it to her feet.

“The toughest thing for her is that sometimes she’s like a pinch-hitter in baseball who comes up in the ninth inning. She hasn’t touched the ball for three games and now she’s expected to come out and make the brilliant save and you wonder her head’s going to be. She’s been fantastic. And in addition to all that, she was getting asked to prom.”

Winslow said his goalkeeper’s response to prom was different from the negative reply she gave to Rosary’s attackers in the closing moments of the game.

“I am assuming she said yes because she was pretty excited about it,” Winslow said.