O’Fallon, Granite City lead way in SWC race
Statistically, there’s not much separating the Granite City and O’Fallon girls soccer teams, so it’s not surprising to find the Warriors and Panthers tied atop the Southwestern Conference standings.
Both teams are 3-0-1 in league play. Granite City (9-2-1 overall) has outscored its opponents 37-11, while O’Fallon (8-2-1) has outscored its opponents 37-12.
“The girls have played well the last few weeks and we’ve had some good results in the conference against some quality teams,” said Granite City coach Skip Birdsong, whose squad defeated Lindbergh 1-0 Monday in the first round of the CYC/Joseph Carenza Memorial Tournament. “This is a tight-knit group and we’ve gotten production from a lot of different areas. Even though we have some big names that people might recognize, we don’t rely on any one player.”
Senior Hope Jones leads the Warriors with 10 goals and six assists, including two goals each in conference wins over Edwardsville and Belleville West. Natalie Crane has six goals and one assist, while fellow junior Ashley Deckard has five goals and four assists.
“Hope is leading the charge offensively, which is what you expect out of a Division I recruit,” Birdsong said of Jones, who will play next season at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. “Ann Wojtowicz and Rachel Meyer have played well on defense and Carleigh Steinmeyer and Alyssa Baumann have really been solid in the midfield.
“We have some underclassmen that have stepped up early in the year. A couple freshmen have played good minutes and we have some sophomores who got playing time last year.”
The Warriors were scheduled to play again Tuesday and Wednesday at the CYC Tournament. After a day off on Thursday, Granite City will play one game Friday and two games Saturday in the Brine Tournament of Champions in Burlington, Iowa.
O’Fallon, meanwhile, lost 1-0 Monday to Francis Howell Central in the first round of the St, Dominic/Francis Howell North Tournament.
“We’re really working well together as a team,” Panthers coach Craig Dippel said. “(Sophomore) Paige Pfankuch is our leading scorer (nine goals, four assists), but overall we have good balance. You can’t just mark on one person.”
Junior goalkeeper Alaina Bauer is 7-1-1 with a 1.25 goals-against average and three shutouts (two solo) and has kept the Panthers in a number of games. The starting back four features three sophomores (Ally Griggs, Alyssa Soehlke and Mikayla Moeller) and one junior (Michelle Votrain).
“We’ve done well at keeping the other team from scoring,” Dippel said. “In the Belleville East game (a 2-1 win on April 15), we held (Kayla) Delgado, who is their big gun, without a goal.
“Jessie York plays center midfield and she controls the defense and the offense. We’ve also gotten good production from our outside midfielders, Katie Morris and Kirsten Crabtree.”
The Panthers have conference wins over Alton, East and Collinsville and played Granite City to a 2-2 tie on April 6.
“Coming back to tie Granite City was huge for us,” Dippel said. “We were down 2-0 with a minute to play and got two goals (from Crabtree and freshman Lauren Knight). We still have Belleville West and Edwardsville left and we’ll have to be at the top of our game to beat them, but we hold our destiny in our hands. If we win out, we’ll get at least a share of the conference championship.”
Edwardsville, under first-year head coach Abby Bohnenstiehl, is 3-1 in the conference and 6-5-3 overall heading into Thursday’s home game against Bayless.
“It has been a pretty smooth transition only because I coached the girls last year under Mark Heiderscheid,” said Bohnenstiehl, who was an assistant coach at Triad under Mike Villa in 2008. “The team’s performance has been OK. We have hit a little bit of a rough patch these past two weeks, but we are starting to get back into the groove of things again.”
The Tigers have SWC wins over Collinsville, Belleville East and Belleville West, with its lone loss to Granite City. Senior Rachel Compton is the team’s leading scorer with 10 goals and three assists.
“Heather Schneider has been playing our sweeper position and has been a big help to (goalkeeper Lauren) Parkin,” Bohnenstiehl said. “Lauren has been playing great in goal for us this year.
“Shelby Dittmar, Kirstin Kurilla and Sarah Raab have done a wonderful job as our outside mids. All three have been working hard and have been making runs to the outside.”
Belleville East, which also has a new coach in Alex McDonald, was 2-2 in the conference and 7-6 overall heading into Tuesday’s home game against Belleville West.
“We’re a little bit young, but we’re growing into a team and starting to connect,” McDonald said. “We’re trying to stay away from injuries, but overall the team is starting to look good.
“We could easily be 10-3. I can look back at three games where we got the better of the play, but we let it get away from us.”
Freshman Kayla Delgado has already become one of the area’s top scoring threats with 15 goals and six assists. Her sister, sophomore Marissa Delgado, had three goals and 10 assists.
“Kayla has been really good up top and with her sister in the midfield, they have that special connection,” McDonald said. “They almost know what the other one is going to do before they do it.”
Junior Katie Foytlin has been named one of the team’s captains thanks to her solid all-around play.
“She can play center midfield, outside midfield or anywhere where the game is going awry,” McDonald said. “She knows how to hold on to the ball and help dictate the flow of the game.
“Siobhan Steppe (another junior captain) is our center back. She does a great job of organizing the defense and helping our goalie Abby (Burgdorf), who is a freshman, come along.”
The defense includes sophomore Trinity Lopez and freshman Tierra Poyner. Senior Leslie Smith is currently out with an ankle injury, so freshman Miranda Bohnenstiehl has stepped into her spot.
Alton, meanwhile, is 1-2 in the SWC, but is 9-4-1 overall.
“The girls have played their hearts out and it’s been an extremely fun season so far,” Redbirds coach Greg Nasello said. “Looking back at the beginning of the season after we had lost so much talent from the last couple years, a lot of people probably didn’t think we would be very good overall, let alone in the conference. But the girls have come together really and we’ve been very competitive.”
Nasello credits much of the Redbirds’ success to his five team captains: senior goalkeeper Brooke Cooley, junior center back Gwen Sabo, senior center back Jenna Rynders and senior midfielders Jessica Varner and Erin Reilly.
“We don’t use them all (as captains) at one time, but the team voted on them and the coaches agreed,” Nasello said. “This team plays very well together and they’ve very unselfish, almost too unselfish at times. We’ve hit a few goalposts and there have been times where we didn’t get shots off quickly enough, but if the only things you need to work are technical stuff like that, your team is in pretty good shape. Mentally and physically, we’re right where we need to be.”
Collinsville, which defeated Washington (Mo) 1-0 Monday in the first round of the CYC Tournament, improved to 6-7 overall. The Kahoks are 1-5 in the conference.
“We were conference co-champions last year, but we didn’t play as good a soccer as we’re playing this year,” Collinsville coach Ron Rowden said. “Our biggest problem is scoring. We’ve been in every game, but early in the year we were giving up bad goals at bad times. Between that and not finishing, it kind of puts a damper on the positive things. I think we’ve turned things around as far as giving up bad goals, but injuries have hurt our flexibility as far as scoring.”
Senior Alexis Trybinski leads the team in scoring with five goals and five assists for 15 points. Junior Kayla Ervin has five goals and three assists, while sophomore Jordyn Reiniger has five goals and two assists.
“That’s kind of deceiving because Reiniger has been out for seven games with a knee injury,” Rowden said. “She had been on a tear for a while, but hopefully she’ll return in another week or so.”
Senior Chelsea Smith (three goals, two assists) and junior Madalan O’Leary are the leaders in the midfield.
“O’Leary has only one assist, but she’s a role player and we use her all over the field,” Rowden said. “Smith is a team leader and has won our 110 Percent Award the last three seasons. She’s just continuing what she started.
“The kids are realizing that sometimes you need 11 players to defend and our team defending has gotten a lot better in the last week. Mary Stroud has done a nice job at center back and Tayler Pulvirenti has been outstanding in goal.
Tayler was kind of a question mark after replacing (2009 starter) Katelyn Hoffman, but she’s very good in one-on-one situations.”
West, which was 7-7 overall heading into Tuesday’s game at East, was 0-3 in league play.
“We had a rough stretch (including a four-game losing streak), but in the last week-and-a-half we’ve started to play a lot better,” Maroons coach Jason Mathenia said. “We’re definitely starting to get more comfortable with what we’re doing and we’re moving the ball a lot better.
“Cydney Robertson (11 goals, four assists) is our leading goal scorer and Amy Schield is our senior leader in the back. Otherwise, it’s pretty much been an all-around team effort.
“After winning the conference (along with Collinsville) last year, our expectations were really high that we’d do well again this year, but now the best we can finish is the middle of the pack. We knew we would have some question marks early on, but our goal was to be ready to go for the postseason. From what I’ve seen in the last week-and-a-half, things are pointing in that direction.”
Like Granite City, the Maroons are in the Brine Tournament of Champions in Burlington, Iowa, and will play one game on Friday and two games on Saturday.
