Find-a-way Glenbard East
gets it done against Willowbrook
D protects frosh fill-in GK, Zatarski gets hat-trick in 4-1 win
By Dave Owen
LOMBARD- Unexpected adversity seems to bring out the best in Glenbard East.
Ten minutes into the Class 3A regional semifinal match against Willowbrook on Wednesday, the Rams faced a 1-0 deficit and the potentially disastrous loss of starting goalkeeper Zoe Romano for the match due to injury.
Glenbard East (8-3-2) responded to the twin tests in style.
Freshman Sophia Sommesi shifted from her forward spot to goalkeeper and produced 70 minutes of shutout work in the nets, and the combination of Sarah Conroy’s two precision assists and Maia Zatarski’s second half hat-trick provided the offensive push for a 4-1 win over the Warriors (11-4-0).
The victory sends the Rams, seeded eighth in the Morton Sectional, to a Friday regional final match at top sectional seed Benet, which was ranked no. 2 in the final Chicagoland Soccer Top 25.
Glenbard East’s resilient effort against its neighbor a few miles east down Roosevelt Road was incredible.
“I think that everyone on our team is doing a great job of stepping in wherever our coach (Kent Overbey) needs us,” Zatarski said. “No one’s ever complained about changing positions. Everyone’s motivated to do whatever helps the team, even when we don’t always have our full roster.”
The Rams began the match with everyone on the roster available for just the third time this season. But neither that situation nor a 0-0 tie lasted long.
Just over a minute in, Brooke Vandergrift’s goal sprung Willowbrook to a 1-0 lead.
Romano then needed a diving save at the right post in the eighth minute to hold that margin. And her next touch of the ball would be painful.
In a race with Willowbrook star Grace Tumilty (29 goals) to a long send toward the box, Romano arrived first to clear the ball but took the worst of the ensuing collision.
When she left the game, freshman Sommesi, who never played goalkeeper at any level, was summoned to take over in the Rams’ pivotal match of the season.
“(Overbey) was like, ‘Sommesi you’re going into goal,’ and I was very nervous,” she said. “But then I was like ‘It’s me stepping up. I was asked, so there’s a reason I was put in there.’
“And actually someone said ‘Your confidence is one of your strongest personality traits.’ And that helped me a lot.
“I’m pretty sure it (being put in the goal) was because of my height (5-foot-10). I was always joking around ‘I’ll go in goal; I’ll go in goal.’ So maybe that was it too.”
Whatever the reason, Sommesi answered the pressure-filled challenge with three saves and no goals allowed.
“She’s a big-time volleyball player with size and good feet,” Overbey said. “So we felt good in terms of her getting down and making saves.
“She’s such a competitor. She probably did not enjoy it back there, but she did it and the team helped her out.”
Other Rams also embraced new or bigger roles.
“(Hope) McKenna had started every game (at center back) but she had food poisoning,” Overbey said,” so we had to move (usual midfielder Sophia) Heatley to the back line. And Haley (Tu) really stepped up. She’s been logging a lot of minutes off the bench for us, and came in and played about 70 today.”
Befitting the Rams’ theme of the day, Tu aced the endurance test at midfield.
“It’s a lot easier knowing I have the support of my teammates,” Tu said. “There’s usually two of us in the back. So, if we work together we can trap them and get the ball away.
“It’s having the people around me and knowing I can trust them. I can step up and know they’re behind me if I get beat to the ball, and I can do the same for them as well.”
Of all the possible reactions these pressure-packed changes could have created, the least expected may have been that it made the Rams play looser.
“Honestly when stuff like this happens it makes the game more fun,” Zatarski said, “because we don’t know what’s going to happen. Everyone’s willing to play and have fun.
“With Soph when she was playing goal, in the beginning it was fun to hear everyone cheering for her just making any save. Sophia stepped in perfectly and did the job.”
Sommesi’s first save didn’t come until the 16th minute, by which time the Rams’ offense had begun to click and turned the early deficit into a tie.
In the 11th minute, Conroy’s shot off a Jasmine Dhemers pass was denied on a diving save by Willowbrook goalkeeper Madison Aderholt. Conroy came even closer on her rebound try, lining a shot off the right post.
Though denied twice as a shooter, Conroy was unstoppable as the catalyst on set pieces.
With 27:46 left in the first half, her corner kick from the right side found defender Kendall Crackel in a crowd left of the net. Crackel deflected the high send into the net, and the score was 1-1.
The rest of the first half featured a Sommesi save on an end line shot by Tumilty in the 25th minute, in between a trio of Rams quality bids. Dhamers sent a liner wide left off a win in the box in the 15th minute, and Sarah Liljestrand had chances 21 minutes in (a run up the middle and 20-yard shot saved by Aderholt) and in the 33rd minute (a low 19-yarder smothered by Aderholt).
Crackel’s nice steal right of the net diffused a last second attack by Willowbrook, as the first half ended 1-1.
“It was a tale of two halves,” Willowbrook coach Julio Del Real said. “The first half was pretty even, everyone had opportunities. We were coming after each other and doing very well against each other.
“The second half, I don’t know what happened to my girls. They (Glenbard East) came out harder, and it seemed like they wanted it more. We didn’t have a solution.”
Zatarski was one major problem for the Warriors, starting with her role in another perfect Conroy corner kick.
Conroy’s send to the crease with 36:39 left to play was headed in by Zatarski, and the Rams were up for keeps at 2-1.
The assist was Conroy’s 14th of the season, and part of her huge finishing kick to the season.
“She works hard, and she serves those corners. They’re on the spot every time,” Overbey said. “We have I think five goals off of corners the last three games, and it’s all Conroy right to that spot.
“We had our team awards, and she (Conroy) won the Swiss Army Knife Award because she can play center back, outside back, attacking center mid and up-top. Up-top she’s a great attacking player, and that’s kind of where she settled now that everybody’s healthy.”
Zatarski struck again four minutes later for a 3-1 lead, this time off a full-out individual effort. Winning a 50/50 ball, she cut to open turf in the middle and lined a 20-yarder inside the upper left post.
Then as icing on the win with 11:40 to go, Zatarski fielded a long punt by Sommesi, sprinted in left and powered home her hat-trick goal.
“It was everyone else,” Zatarski said of her feat. “They just got (the ball) right to me.
“It was definitely Sophia’s great punt all the way up the field. She has that big kick. Also Sarah C.’s corners were perfect. That one I got the head on was like the most perfect one ever.”
Despite missing half the season, Zatarski upped her goal total to nine.
“When she’s healthy, she’s as dangerous as it gets,” Overbey said. “She’s a game-changer.”
The same words summed up Willowbrook’s Tumilty this spring. But the Rams kept her largely under control Wednesday.
“They did a hell of a job on Gracie,” Del Real said, “double-teaming her and triple-teaming her at times.
“The way they stopped her, I have to hand it to them. She’s a special young lady. It’s probably the best any team has done against her.”
As with everything the Rams did in the win, that task required sacrifice and team effort.
“I thought between (Natalie) Borcean, Haley Tu and Heatley our defensive center mids, the three of them did a great job on her,” Overbey said. “And Sarah Liljestrand too really screened balls coming in to her and ran up their defense.
“One of the keys was, we were getting those balls trying to find her (Tumilty’s) feet, and just running at them. Specifically Haley Tu’s role expanded, and in the heat of the moment she answered the bell.”
Other defensive highlights of the Rams’ second half included Brielle DeForest’s nice blocked shot left of the net with 18:05 to play, and Sommesi’s save on an Erin Fitzgibbon right side liner with 16:15 left.
“They (the defense) were definitely making me more confident,” Sommesi said. “They were like ‘good save’ and when they first passed the ball to my feet I was like ‘Oh no!’ But they trusted me with it.
“And they took out girls when I needed them to take them out, and created less of a chance on my part for having to make the save.”
For Willowbrook, the loss followed a run of nine wins in the last 10 games to close the regular-season.
“I was telling them we played a bad half, and it cost us.,” Del Real said. “But it doesn’t take away from the 11-4-0 (record) and 61 goals (scored) in 15 games, I’ll take those any day. Six or seven shutouts.
“This was a special team. If you had seen them the first day of practice, and the way we played in the first half, it’s a tale of two cities. The girls came a long way this season. We hate this end result, but these girls have nothing to be ashamed of. We lost to a very good team.”
That very good and very resilient Glenbard East team now gears up for the major test of Benet.
“Benet is loaded,” Overbey said. “They have (Jaimee) Cibulka up-top, maybe the best player in the state.
“It’s a tall task. We’ll have to defend well obviously. We’ve had some experience with South Elgin and (star striker) Katrina Barthelt. She’s incredibly dangerous, and we pretty well bottled her up.
“We’ve going to have to have a good game. No mistakes. And hopefully Zoe is back and healthy enough to go.”
Starting lineups
Willowbrook
GK Madison Aderholt
D Abigail Spada
D Layla Elgamal
D Alyssa Vittorio
D Rachel Klamecki
MF Haley Preuss
MF Grace Tumilty
MF Brooke Vandergrift
MF Mackenzie Parente
F Erin Fitzgibbon
F Molly Brennan
Glenbard East
GK Zoe Romano
D Kendall Crackel
D Sophia Heatley
D Brielle DeForest
D Maddie Kiefer
MF Maia Zatarski
MF Sarah Conroy
MF Natalie Borcean
MF Sarah Liljestrand
F Jasmine Dhamers
F Sophia Somessi
Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match: Maia Zatarski, jr., MF, Glenbard East
Scoring summary
First half
W- Vandergrift, 2nd min
GE- Kendall Crackel (Sarah Conroy), 13th min
Second half
GE- Maia Zatarski (Conroy), 44th min
GE- Zatarski, 48th min
GE- Zatarski (Sophia Sommesi), 69th min
gets it done against Willowbrook
D protects frosh fill-in GK, Zatarski gets hat-trick in 4-1 win
By Dave Owen
LOMBARD- Unexpected adversity seems to bring out the best in Glenbard East.
Ten minutes into the Class 3A regional semifinal match against Willowbrook on Wednesday, the Rams faced a 1-0 deficit and the potentially disastrous loss of starting goalkeeper Zoe Romano for the match due to injury.
Glenbard East (8-3-2) responded to the twin tests in style.
Freshman Sophia Sommesi shifted from her forward spot to goalkeeper and produced 70 minutes of shutout work in the nets, and the combination of Sarah Conroy’s two precision assists and Maia Zatarski’s second half hat-trick provided the offensive push for a 4-1 win over the Warriors (11-4-0).
The victory sends the Rams, seeded eighth in the Morton Sectional, to a Friday regional final match at top sectional seed Benet, which was ranked no. 2 in the final Chicagoland Soccer Top 25.
Glenbard East’s resilient effort against its neighbor a few miles east down Roosevelt Road was incredible.
“I think that everyone on our team is doing a great job of stepping in wherever our coach (Kent Overbey) needs us,” Zatarski said. “No one’s ever complained about changing positions. Everyone’s motivated to do whatever helps the team, even when we don’t always have our full roster.”
The Rams began the match with everyone on the roster available for just the third time this season. But neither that situation nor a 0-0 tie lasted long.
Just over a minute in, Brooke Vandergrift’s goal sprung Willowbrook to a 1-0 lead.
Romano then needed a diving save at the right post in the eighth minute to hold that margin. And her next touch of the ball would be painful.
In a race with Willowbrook star Grace Tumilty (29 goals) to a long send toward the box, Romano arrived first to clear the ball but took the worst of the ensuing collision.
When she left the game, freshman Sommesi, who never played goalkeeper at any level, was summoned to take over in the Rams’ pivotal match of the season.
“(Overbey) was like, ‘Sommesi you’re going into goal,’ and I was very nervous,” she said. “But then I was like ‘It’s me stepping up. I was asked, so there’s a reason I was put in there.’
“And actually someone said ‘Your confidence is one of your strongest personality traits.’ And that helped me a lot.
“I’m pretty sure it (being put in the goal) was because of my height (5-foot-10). I was always joking around ‘I’ll go in goal; I’ll go in goal.’ So maybe that was it too.”
Whatever the reason, Sommesi answered the pressure-filled challenge with three saves and no goals allowed.
“She’s a big-time volleyball player with size and good feet,” Overbey said. “So we felt good in terms of her getting down and making saves.
“She’s such a competitor. She probably did not enjoy it back there, but she did it and the team helped her out.”
Other Rams also embraced new or bigger roles.
“(Hope) McKenna had started every game (at center back) but she had food poisoning,” Overbey said,” so we had to move (usual midfielder Sophia) Heatley to the back line. And Haley (Tu) really stepped up. She’s been logging a lot of minutes off the bench for us, and came in and played about 70 today.”
Befitting the Rams’ theme of the day, Tu aced the endurance test at midfield.
“It’s a lot easier knowing I have the support of my teammates,” Tu said. “There’s usually two of us in the back. So, if we work together we can trap them and get the ball away.
“It’s having the people around me and knowing I can trust them. I can step up and know they’re behind me if I get beat to the ball, and I can do the same for them as well.”
Of all the possible reactions these pressure-packed changes could have created, the least expected may have been that it made the Rams play looser.
“Honestly when stuff like this happens it makes the game more fun,” Zatarski said, “because we don’t know what’s going to happen. Everyone’s willing to play and have fun.
“With Soph when she was playing goal, in the beginning it was fun to hear everyone cheering for her just making any save. Sophia stepped in perfectly and did the job.”
Sommesi’s first save didn’t come until the 16th minute, by which time the Rams’ offense had begun to click and turned the early deficit into a tie.
In the 11th minute, Conroy’s shot off a Jasmine Dhemers pass was denied on a diving save by Willowbrook goalkeeper Madison Aderholt. Conroy came even closer on her rebound try, lining a shot off the right post.
Though denied twice as a shooter, Conroy was unstoppable as the catalyst on set pieces.
With 27:46 left in the first half, her corner kick from the right side found defender Kendall Crackel in a crowd left of the net. Crackel deflected the high send into the net, and the score was 1-1.
The rest of the first half featured a Sommesi save on an end line shot by Tumilty in the 25th minute, in between a trio of Rams quality bids. Dhamers sent a liner wide left off a win in the box in the 15th minute, and Sarah Liljestrand had chances 21 minutes in (a run up the middle and 20-yard shot saved by Aderholt) and in the 33rd minute (a low 19-yarder smothered by Aderholt).
Crackel’s nice steal right of the net diffused a last second attack by Willowbrook, as the first half ended 1-1.
“It was a tale of two halves,” Willowbrook coach Julio Del Real said. “The first half was pretty even, everyone had opportunities. We were coming after each other and doing very well against each other.
“The second half, I don’t know what happened to my girls. They (Glenbard East) came out harder, and it seemed like they wanted it more. We didn’t have a solution.”
Zatarski was one major problem for the Warriors, starting with her role in another perfect Conroy corner kick.
Conroy’s send to the crease with 36:39 left to play was headed in by Zatarski, and the Rams were up for keeps at 2-1.
The assist was Conroy’s 14th of the season, and part of her huge finishing kick to the season.
“She works hard, and she serves those corners. They’re on the spot every time,” Overbey said. “We have I think five goals off of corners the last three games, and it’s all Conroy right to that spot.
“We had our team awards, and she (Conroy) won the Swiss Army Knife Award because she can play center back, outside back, attacking center mid and up-top. Up-top she’s a great attacking player, and that’s kind of where she settled now that everybody’s healthy.”
Zatarski struck again four minutes later for a 3-1 lead, this time off a full-out individual effort. Winning a 50/50 ball, she cut to open turf in the middle and lined a 20-yarder inside the upper left post.
Then as icing on the win with 11:40 to go, Zatarski fielded a long punt by Sommesi, sprinted in left and powered home her hat-trick goal.
“It was everyone else,” Zatarski said of her feat. “They just got (the ball) right to me.
“It was definitely Sophia’s great punt all the way up the field. She has that big kick. Also Sarah C.’s corners were perfect. That one I got the head on was like the most perfect one ever.”
Despite missing half the season, Zatarski upped her goal total to nine.
“When she’s healthy, she’s as dangerous as it gets,” Overbey said. “She’s a game-changer.”
The same words summed up Willowbrook’s Tumilty this spring. But the Rams kept her largely under control Wednesday.
“They did a hell of a job on Gracie,” Del Real said, “double-teaming her and triple-teaming her at times.
“The way they stopped her, I have to hand it to them. She’s a special young lady. It’s probably the best any team has done against her.”
As with everything the Rams did in the win, that task required sacrifice and team effort.
“I thought between (Natalie) Borcean, Haley Tu and Heatley our defensive center mids, the three of them did a great job on her,” Overbey said. “And Sarah Liljestrand too really screened balls coming in to her and ran up their defense.
“One of the keys was, we were getting those balls trying to find her (Tumilty’s) feet, and just running at them. Specifically Haley Tu’s role expanded, and in the heat of the moment she answered the bell.”
Other defensive highlights of the Rams’ second half included Brielle DeForest’s nice blocked shot left of the net with 18:05 to play, and Sommesi’s save on an Erin Fitzgibbon right side liner with 16:15 left.
“They (the defense) were definitely making me more confident,” Sommesi said. “They were like ‘good save’ and when they first passed the ball to my feet I was like ‘Oh no!’ But they trusted me with it.
“And they took out girls when I needed them to take them out, and created less of a chance on my part for having to make the save.”
For Willowbrook, the loss followed a run of nine wins in the last 10 games to close the regular-season.
“I was telling them we played a bad half, and it cost us.,” Del Real said. “But it doesn’t take away from the 11-4-0 (record) and 61 goals (scored) in 15 games, I’ll take those any day. Six or seven shutouts.
“This was a special team. If you had seen them the first day of practice, and the way we played in the first half, it’s a tale of two cities. The girls came a long way this season. We hate this end result, but these girls have nothing to be ashamed of. We lost to a very good team.”
That very good and very resilient Glenbard East team now gears up for the major test of Benet.
“Benet is loaded,” Overbey said. “They have (Jaimee) Cibulka up-top, maybe the best player in the state.
“It’s a tall task. We’ll have to defend well obviously. We’ve had some experience with South Elgin and (star striker) Katrina Barthelt. She’s incredibly dangerous, and we pretty well bottled her up.
“We’ve going to have to have a good game. No mistakes. And hopefully Zoe is back and healthy enough to go.”
Starting lineups
Willowbrook
GK Madison Aderholt
D Abigail Spada
D Layla Elgamal
D Alyssa Vittorio
D Rachel Klamecki
MF Haley Preuss
MF Grace Tumilty
MF Brooke Vandergrift
MF Mackenzie Parente
F Erin Fitzgibbon
F Molly Brennan
Glenbard East
GK Zoe Romano
D Kendall Crackel
D Sophia Heatley
D Brielle DeForest
D Maddie Kiefer
MF Maia Zatarski
MF Sarah Conroy
MF Natalie Borcean
MF Sarah Liljestrand
F Jasmine Dhamers
F Sophia Somessi
Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match: Maia Zatarski, jr., MF, Glenbard East
Scoring summary
First half
W- Vandergrift, 2nd min
GE- Kendall Crackel (Sarah Conroy), 13th min
Second half
GE- Maia Zatarski (Conroy), 44th min
GE- Zatarski, 48th min
GE- Zatarski (Sophia Sommesi), 69th min