Carroll high five gives
Streamwood tourney championship
Senior's 5-goal game earns 1st St. Edward title of her career
By Dave Owen
ELGIN -- One month after finalizing her college future, Streamwood’s Tawny Carroll celebrated that anniversary in style Saturday.
The Drake University-bound Carroll scored all five goals in the final game of the Green Wave Invitational on Saturday at St. Edward. That incredible performance in a 5-0 win over Harvest Christian (5-5-0) capped the Sabres’ run to the tournament championship.
“No. 14 (Carroll) is such a good player for them,” Harvest Christian coach Jason Acres said. “She is strong, and I think she’s going to make a great player at the next level.
“We just didn’t have anybody who can match up with her. She’s so fast, and has great control and skills. We had our hands full with her.”
The five-goal performance continued a recent trend for the Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match.
Carroll’s 18 goals this season include 12 in her last four games. The run began with a four-goal game against Addison Trail, and even the shortened 30-minute halves and rain-soaked grass field of the St. Edward Tournament didn’t slow her down.
“She’s heads above anyone else out there, it seems no matter who we play,” Streamwood coach Matt Polovin said. “She’s one of the top forwards in the state for a reason, and this weekend she showed it.
“It’s hard to stop someone with that amount of speed and pace and non-stop 80 minutes, or this weekend 60 minutes, of energy. She’s fun to watch.”
For Carroll, the most fun came in the result: the first tournament title of her stellar four-year Streamwood career.
“This is great,” Carroll said. “This is my senior year and I’ve been in it since my freshman year, and we’ve always come so close to winning but never got that finish against St. Ed’s. To get it this year in my senior year, I’m really proud of my team.”
The breakhrough win of the tournament was Friday’s 2-1 decision over the host Green Wave, in which Carroll and fellow co-captain Alondra Blanco each had a goal and an assist.
Saturday began with a 3-1 win over Westminster Christian. Then after her two-goal effort in that game, Carroll upped the ante in the finale that afternoon.
Her goal off a Esmerelda Navarro assist 24:03 before halftime gave the Sabres (7-7) the lead for good at 1-0.
Then moments after Kaila Ford and Rosa Miranda combined to clear a Harvest Christian corner kick from danger, Carroll created havoc at the other end of the field.
Sprinting in on right wing, Carroll dribbled around the charging Harvest goalkeeper and tucked a shot into an open net for a 2-0 lead with 17:11 left in the half.
“Our combination play and a lot of work off the ball (was the key),” Polovin said. “The girls were definitely trying to make as many diagonal runs as they could and playing them through.
“With Tawny and Alondra, it’s a 1-2 punch up top. If you stop one, you have to stop the other. They were working really well together this weekend. They accounted for a lot of the points, whether it was goals for one and the other getting assists. With those two clicking it’s going to be tough for many teams to stop them.”
The Blanco-Carroll combo was narrowly denied 7:50 before halftime, when Carroll’s one-touch 10-yarder off a nice Blanco pass was stopped on a diving save by Harvest Christian keeper Isamar Garcia.
But that near miss was just a prelude to a pre-halftime blitz.
With 5:08 left, Jasmine Arodondo’s pass connected with Carroll left of the net. She dribbled around a defender left of the box to create space, then lined a 15-yarder inside the right post for a 3-0 lead.
Two near-misses followed: a point blank Garcia save at the post of a Carroll shot at 3:25, then a Ford 6-yard deflection just over the net off an Alexandra Bonilla cross 2:20 before halftime.
Then with 30.7 seconds left on the first half clock, Carroll added to her hat trick. Set up by a Blanco pass, she beat two defenders in on right wing and lined an 8-yard shot past Garcia for a 4-0 halftime lead.
“He (Polovin) tells us to take it down the line every time,” Carroll said, “beat the defender by passing past them, cross it or take it to goal. That’s what I’ve been working on, and it worked really well for me in this game.”
The Sabres continued to push after the break. In the first 10 minutes, Blanco lined an 18-yarder just over the crossbar, and Ford chipped a shot just wide off a Shonali Pierce-Vazquez pass.
Carroll completed her high five of goals with 16:08 left to play, bursting in again on the left side off a Vanessa Campos pass and powering home a 12-yard shot.
Once 1-5 this season, the Sabres literally took note of their areas of needed improvement and are on a four-game winning streak.
“Before this tournament we had a couple of down games and were kind of losing our confidence,” Carroll said. “We actually sat down and each of us wrote down what we wanted to do better and how we were going to do it. We did that just before the St. Ed’s Tournament, and I think that winning this tournament brought up our confidence a lot.
“We actually pulled off the things we talked about in our papers. So I think this is a new starting point for us. Going towards regionals we’re going to keep this up and get some more wins definitely.”
The Sabres’ two other seniors made their own big contributions to the title run.
Goalkeeper Nathalie Guindon capped her shutout of Harvest Christian with a big play. With 10:45 left, she came far off her line to smother a 22-yard shot by Amanda Moore.
Another Harvest threat with 6:15 left was dulled by a Navarro block and eventual clear of the defensive zone by senior defender Rose Miranda.
“At this point of the season it’s really just a big confidence boost for us,” Miranda said of the tourney title. “Especially with the regional coming up, we could get a higher seed and maybe win a regional.
“And being our senior year this is the first time winning this tournament. The past two years it’s been second place.”
Streamwood’s lineup features six freshmen or sophomores. The youngsters have progressed well with the help of the seven years of combined varsity experience that Carroll and Miranda bring.
“It’s a young team, but you always have to have that positivity and always push yourself and them too,” Miranda said. “It’s a really big switch from being a freshman to playing at this level, but we just try to keep their heads up and let them know ‘It’s OK. Next time you’ve got it.’ It’s a team. We play as a team and no matter what we’re always going to be together. So we give them that confidence. Even though they’re young they know they can do it.”
A grueling Upstate 8 Conference schedule allows little room for error, but the Sabres have made great strides.
“This season I’m trying to push my team and myself as hard as possible,” Carroll said. “I think we’ve come out really good against some tough teams. I’m really proud of them. We have such a young team with two field player seniors. It’s been great and I hope they continue when I leave.”
Before that happens, the 2015 Sabres have a major accomplishment to savor and more challenges to meet.
“As a team it was nice for them to get three good wins like this, and finally we win this tournament,” Polovin said. “We’ve been so close every year: we would get second place and St. Ed’s wins it.
“This year going 3-0 and beating St. Ed’s for the first time is great for the girls at this point of the season. They need as much confidence as possible going into the final part of the regular season. We have a couple of tough games with Geneva on Monday and Larkin on Wednesday.”
Streamwood moves on with growing confidence, something even a rain-drenched field failed to douse Saturday.
“It was hard, but both teams played on it,” Miranda said. “We tried to make the best of it, and we did.
“With this win we have the mentality that we can win a lot from here on out,” Miranda added. “Now we go into the following games knowing that if we go hard, we can win. We have a young team, but we have good players.”
Starting lineups
Streamwood
GK: Nathalie Guindon
D: Esmerelda Navarro
D: Rose Miranda
D: Stephanie Corona
D: Alexandra Bonilla
M: Alondra Blanco
M: Vanessa Campos
M: Cassandra Adan
M: Kaila Ford
F: Tawny Carroll
F: Shonali Pierce-Vazquez
Harvest Christian:
GK: Isamar Garcia
D: Alexandria Rayappa
D: Ashlyn Floyd
D: Emma Stotz
D: Evelyn Bautista
M: Ariel Tohme
M: Hannah Caldwell
M: Holley Colclasure
M: Taylor Keeran
F: Amanda Moore
F: Morgan Lockwood
MVP of the Match: Tawny Carroll, F, Streamwood
Streamwood tourney championship
Senior's 5-goal game earns 1st St. Edward title of her career
By Dave Owen
ELGIN -- One month after finalizing her college future, Streamwood’s Tawny Carroll celebrated that anniversary in style Saturday.
The Drake University-bound Carroll scored all five goals in the final game of the Green Wave Invitational on Saturday at St. Edward. That incredible performance in a 5-0 win over Harvest Christian (5-5-0) capped the Sabres’ run to the tournament championship.
“No. 14 (Carroll) is such a good player for them,” Harvest Christian coach Jason Acres said. “She is strong, and I think she’s going to make a great player at the next level.
“We just didn’t have anybody who can match up with her. She’s so fast, and has great control and skills. We had our hands full with her.”
The five-goal performance continued a recent trend for the Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match.
Carroll’s 18 goals this season include 12 in her last four games. The run began with a four-goal game against Addison Trail, and even the shortened 30-minute halves and rain-soaked grass field of the St. Edward Tournament didn’t slow her down.
“She’s heads above anyone else out there, it seems no matter who we play,” Streamwood coach Matt Polovin said. “She’s one of the top forwards in the state for a reason, and this weekend she showed it.
“It’s hard to stop someone with that amount of speed and pace and non-stop 80 minutes, or this weekend 60 minutes, of energy. She’s fun to watch.”
For Carroll, the most fun came in the result: the first tournament title of her stellar four-year Streamwood career.
“This is great,” Carroll said. “This is my senior year and I’ve been in it since my freshman year, and we’ve always come so close to winning but never got that finish against St. Ed’s. To get it this year in my senior year, I’m really proud of my team.”
The breakhrough win of the tournament was Friday’s 2-1 decision over the host Green Wave, in which Carroll and fellow co-captain Alondra Blanco each had a goal and an assist.
Saturday began with a 3-1 win over Westminster Christian. Then after her two-goal effort in that game, Carroll upped the ante in the finale that afternoon.
Her goal off a Esmerelda Navarro assist 24:03 before halftime gave the Sabres (7-7) the lead for good at 1-0.
Then moments after Kaila Ford and Rosa Miranda combined to clear a Harvest Christian corner kick from danger, Carroll created havoc at the other end of the field.
Sprinting in on right wing, Carroll dribbled around the charging Harvest goalkeeper and tucked a shot into an open net for a 2-0 lead with 17:11 left in the half.
“Our combination play and a lot of work off the ball (was the key),” Polovin said. “The girls were definitely trying to make as many diagonal runs as they could and playing them through.
“With Tawny and Alondra, it’s a 1-2 punch up top. If you stop one, you have to stop the other. They were working really well together this weekend. They accounted for a lot of the points, whether it was goals for one and the other getting assists. With those two clicking it’s going to be tough for many teams to stop them.”
The Blanco-Carroll combo was narrowly denied 7:50 before halftime, when Carroll’s one-touch 10-yarder off a nice Blanco pass was stopped on a diving save by Harvest Christian keeper Isamar Garcia.
But that near miss was just a prelude to a pre-halftime blitz.
With 5:08 left, Jasmine Arodondo’s pass connected with Carroll left of the net. She dribbled around a defender left of the box to create space, then lined a 15-yarder inside the right post for a 3-0 lead.
Two near-misses followed: a point blank Garcia save at the post of a Carroll shot at 3:25, then a Ford 6-yard deflection just over the net off an Alexandra Bonilla cross 2:20 before halftime.
Then with 30.7 seconds left on the first half clock, Carroll added to her hat trick. Set up by a Blanco pass, she beat two defenders in on right wing and lined an 8-yard shot past Garcia for a 4-0 halftime lead.
“He (Polovin) tells us to take it down the line every time,” Carroll said, “beat the defender by passing past them, cross it or take it to goal. That’s what I’ve been working on, and it worked really well for me in this game.”
The Sabres continued to push after the break. In the first 10 minutes, Blanco lined an 18-yarder just over the crossbar, and Ford chipped a shot just wide off a Shonali Pierce-Vazquez pass.
Carroll completed her high five of goals with 16:08 left to play, bursting in again on the left side off a Vanessa Campos pass and powering home a 12-yard shot.
Once 1-5 this season, the Sabres literally took note of their areas of needed improvement and are on a four-game winning streak.
“Before this tournament we had a couple of down games and were kind of losing our confidence,” Carroll said. “We actually sat down and each of us wrote down what we wanted to do better and how we were going to do it. We did that just before the St. Ed’s Tournament, and I think that winning this tournament brought up our confidence a lot.
“We actually pulled off the things we talked about in our papers. So I think this is a new starting point for us. Going towards regionals we’re going to keep this up and get some more wins definitely.”
The Sabres’ two other seniors made their own big contributions to the title run.
Goalkeeper Nathalie Guindon capped her shutout of Harvest Christian with a big play. With 10:45 left, she came far off her line to smother a 22-yard shot by Amanda Moore.
Another Harvest threat with 6:15 left was dulled by a Navarro block and eventual clear of the defensive zone by senior defender Rose Miranda.
“At this point of the season it’s really just a big confidence boost for us,” Miranda said of the tourney title. “Especially with the regional coming up, we could get a higher seed and maybe win a regional.
“And being our senior year this is the first time winning this tournament. The past two years it’s been second place.”
Streamwood’s lineup features six freshmen or sophomores. The youngsters have progressed well with the help of the seven years of combined varsity experience that Carroll and Miranda bring.
“It’s a young team, but you always have to have that positivity and always push yourself and them too,” Miranda said. “It’s a really big switch from being a freshman to playing at this level, but we just try to keep their heads up and let them know ‘It’s OK. Next time you’ve got it.’ It’s a team. We play as a team and no matter what we’re always going to be together. So we give them that confidence. Even though they’re young they know they can do it.”
A grueling Upstate 8 Conference schedule allows little room for error, but the Sabres have made great strides.
“This season I’m trying to push my team and myself as hard as possible,” Carroll said. “I think we’ve come out really good against some tough teams. I’m really proud of them. We have such a young team with two field player seniors. It’s been great and I hope they continue when I leave.”
Before that happens, the 2015 Sabres have a major accomplishment to savor and more challenges to meet.
“As a team it was nice for them to get three good wins like this, and finally we win this tournament,” Polovin said. “We’ve been so close every year: we would get second place and St. Ed’s wins it.
“This year going 3-0 and beating St. Ed’s for the first time is great for the girls at this point of the season. They need as much confidence as possible going into the final part of the regular season. We have a couple of tough games with Geneva on Monday and Larkin on Wednesday.”
Streamwood moves on with growing confidence, something even a rain-drenched field failed to douse Saturday.
“It was hard, but both teams played on it,” Miranda said. “We tried to make the best of it, and we did.
“With this win we have the mentality that we can win a lot from here on out,” Miranda added. “Now we go into the following games knowing that if we go hard, we can win. We have a young team, but we have good players.”
Starting lineups
Streamwood
GK: Nathalie Guindon
D: Esmerelda Navarro
D: Rose Miranda
D: Stephanie Corona
D: Alexandra Bonilla
M: Alondra Blanco
M: Vanessa Campos
M: Cassandra Adan
M: Kaila Ford
F: Tawny Carroll
F: Shonali Pierce-Vazquez
Harvest Christian:
GK: Isamar Garcia
D: Alexandria Rayappa
D: Ashlyn Floyd
D: Emma Stotz
D: Evelyn Bautista
M: Ariel Tohme
M: Hannah Caldwell
M: Holley Colclasure
M: Taylor Keeran
F: Amanda Moore
F: Morgan Lockwood
MVP of the Match: Tawny Carroll, F, Streamwood