Vikings fall to New Trier in shortened Naperville Invite semifinal

By Matt Le Cren

Amber Fry struck in the first half, lightning flashed in the second half and just like that, Fremd's hopes of advancing to the championship game of the Naperville Invitational went up in smoke.

Fry, a Virginia signee, scored her 23rd goal of the season with 33:30 left in the first half and that was all New Trier needed to hang on to a 1-0 semifinal victory Friday night at Naperville Central.

The game was called off with 23:59 remaining in the second half because of lightning. The Trevians will meet Barrington, which won 1-0 over Sandburg, in Saturday's 12:30 p.m. championship at Memorial Stadium.

"The girls should be disappointed but not discouraged," Fremd coach Steve Keller said. "We talked a lot about not letting Amber get anything and unfortunately with [her] only shot [she] caught us off guard a little bit."

Fry's goal came on a 35-yard blast with the wind at her back that whizzed over Vikings goalie Allison Norenberg and under the crossbar.

"It was a nice shot but we thought our keeper was a little bit out of position over to her right where she should have been a little more left," Keller said.

"I just felt like we were giving them a little too much time and space through our midfield and the more we do that the more opportunities are going to come for the other team."

New Trier (16-1) was held to only three shots, all of which came during the opening half as Fremd battled into the teeth of a howling wind.

Senior defender Danielle Romano, who along with Emily Basten and Kathleen Holmberg drew praise from Keller for limiting the Trevians' attack, agreed with her coach's assessment.

"[Fry] had an awesome shot and the wind wasn't on our side, but it's not the only reason that she got the shot off," Romano said. "We need to clean things up in the middle and our communication wasn't there."

Even so, New Trier only had one other decent scoring chance. It came with 1:05 left in the opening period when Melina Wezerek hit the left post and Anne Marie Thomas headed the rebound wide.

The Vikings (10-3-1) had a chance to take the early lead but a header by Alexis Tice sailed just over the crossbar in the fourth minute.

Fremd did not have another opportunity until the 24:30 mark of the second half when Michelle Mottonen's 25-yard shot appeared heading for the top shelf before being deflected wide by New Trier defender Lauren Pope.

Shortly thereafter the game was halted by lightning and after a 15-minute delay both coaches decided to end it after looking at radar which indicated an approaching thunderstorm.

"I thought it was going to go in," Romano said. "It was close. I feel like we were pushing at the end there and it would have been nice to have the extra 20 minutes. I felt like we were going to get [the tying goal]."

"We were pressing a little bit in the second half," said Keller, who also liked the effort of forwards Nikki Pagnamenta and Jenny Winberg. "They got the one chance and got [the goal] and we weren't able to capitalize on ours.

"We'll get another opportunity against them and hopefully we've learned something from this game. We just need some more energy out of our midfield."

The Vikings will host the Trevians in their regular season finale May 14 in Palatine.

"Hopefully the conditions are better and now we know how they play, so hopefully we'll do a little better," Romano said.

"I think it's really good that we got this far because these are the best teams that we play all year."

Fremd returns to Mid Suburban League action on Monday when it hosts East division leader Hersey.

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