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Sports

Girls Soccer: Slow Start Costs Spartans

Glenbrook North gave up early goals in both halves to fall 3-1 to New Trier.

New Trier focuses on the big fives, the first and last five minutes of each half, and it showed against Glenbrook North.

The Trevians scored two of their three goals against Glenbrook North in the big fives to cruise to a 3-1 win in the Spartans’ first game this season at William Lutz Stadium on Wednesday.

It was also GBN’s first game in two weeks, following spring break, and coach Paul Vignocchi said that played a factor in the slow start.

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“They came out with so much intensity,” Vignocchi said of New Trier. “This is our first game back from spring break. We had a couple good days of practice, but you could tell our legs were not there today. It’s gonna take us another week to get where we were before the break that we gave the girls, but it’s good to play a team like that just because they know how to play the game and it’s good for our girls to see that.”

New Trier is a ranked side and showed why from the start of the match. Less than three minutes into the match, Anne Marie Thomas received the ball from about 10 yards out and poked the ball into the net for the early lead.

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The Spartans initially responded well, possessing the ball more and attacking the Trevian defense, but New Trier fought back and doubled the lead in the 16th minute. Abigail Waldman made a nice move to fake out a GBN defender and create an open shot in the box. She finished low across the goal to make for a nightmare start for the Spartans.

GBN senior Ashley Kamin said the spring break layoff wasn’t the reason for the slow start.

“I don’t think that so much was a problem,” Kamin said. “I think it was more a mental thing that we came into the game softer. We needed to come into it more aggressive.”

New Trier’s physical and aggressive play allowed the team to start the second half just like the first. In the third minute of the half Zoe Hawks headed in a Haley Rosen corner kick to seemingly put the game out of reach.

GBN (2-2) actually outplayed the Trevians (5-0-2) over the final 30 minutes, culminating in a Kamin goal with 15 minutes left.

"It was good, we put some girls in some different situations and they played well,” Vignocchi said of the latter part of the game. “I was happy about that.”

Sophomore defender Katherine Weber created opportunities for the Spartans from set pieces and long balls, but Vignocchi was especially complimentary toward Kamin. She didn’t start the match, but was in on the attack multiple times during GBN’s late push and combined well with Samantha Lallas, Montana Paley and Rachel Hirsman up top.

 

“Ashley Kamin played great,” Vignocchi said. “She had such a great work rate today and did a tremendous job. She should have gotten quite a bit of recognition today because she really was our best player on the field today.”

Now the trick is to get that strong finish for an entire match. The Spartans are still a few matches away from conference play and will have to get that sorted out by then.

“We just gotta stay focused and get an early start in each game, get a goal or two and then just maintain the intensity the whole game,” Kamin said.

GBN will try to put a full 80 minutes together in its next match, against Vernon Hills on Friday.

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