Spartans struggle against Tigers' speed

By Matt LeCren
Photos courtesy of Terry Matichak

St. Francis has never beaten Wheaton Warrenville South in girls soccer, but for at least 15 minutes Monday afternoon, the Spartans dared to dream.

Host St. Francis shocked the Tigers by taking a 1-0 lead at the 27:55 mark of the first half before WW South recovered and cruised to a 5-1 victory.

Freshman Kaity Bucaro put the Spartans (1-1) on the board with her first career goal. She received a pass from sophomore Andi Matichak at the penalty spot and beat Tigers goalie Kelsey Graham to the lower left corner of the goal.

“When that happened, I thought we would go uphill from there and it did for a while,” St. Francis coach Meghan Boler said. “I don’t know what happened after that. The floodgates opened.”

Once the Tigers (1-0) got used to the muddy field conditions, they used their speed to overwhelm the St. Francis defense. Elizabeth Ciesielski and Katherine Fowee scored 22 seconds apart in the 19th minute to put WW South ahead.

Bucaro ran onto a long ball just inside the penalty area but fired wide with 9:39 left in the first half, but that would be the last good scoring chance for the Spartans until late in the match.

The Tigers increased their lead to 3-1 on Ciesielski’s second goal with 4:43 to play before intermission, then added two goals in a 1:45 span midway through the second half as Lexi Peterson twice raced around right end and got in close. On the first play, Peterson passed in front to McKenna Kiple for a tap-in and the second one she took herself, scoring on a five-yard shot to the near post.

“It’s an eye-opener,” Boler said. “Girls were subbing out and saying, ‘Gosh, they’re so fast.’ We did a lot of preparing for these types of games, so I didn’t think it was that we were out of shape. It was just these constant sprints and after a while you’re beat. You can only take so much.

“But it’s hard to be upset about it because there are a lot of things to work on and we can only go up from here. It’s only the second game of the season and I think we still have a lot of growing to do as a team. Playing South is a wakeup call for the girls.”

Despite the lopsided score, there were bright spots for the Spartans. Senior goalie Kim Gianos made 10 saves and freshman defender Anna Vonderhaar forced Graham to make a solid save with 11:00 remaining. WW South coach Guy Callipari was impressed with the Spartans’ effort and admitted he was worried for a while.

“It’s one of the better sides I’ve seen them have in a while,” Callipari said. They threw the body around and they’re really aggressive and the referees did a great job of allowing that to play and let the girls decide it.

“Their goalie came up big a couple of times and it looked as though it might be a long day, but we started to find opportunities. They probably felt, ‘Can we hold on?’ and we felt the longer we keep them in the game the more confident they were going to get. [The Tigers] showed a lot of resiliency in coming back.”

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