Girls soccer: Washington blanks Streator despite encouraging Bulldogs effort

STREATOR – The Streator Bulldogs girls soccer team found out shortly before its Friday visit from Washington that the Panthers, while in the same subsectional, would not be returning to the Streator Family YMCA in a couple of weeks for the Class 2A Streator Regional.

The No. 3-seeded Panthers and No. 4-seeded Bulldogs nevertheless played a spirited match, with Washington scoring once in the first half on a Kate Woods penalty kick and once in the second half on an eye-popping shot from distance by Willow Toft to beat the Bulldogs 2-0.

“I think we’ve had some rough games over the past two weeks, and we’ve been battling injuries, and we knew Washington was going to be in our state series,” Bulldogs coach J.T. Huey said. “We knew we were going to have to come out and see what we’ve got here, and I think we played a [heck] of a good game.”

The Panthers (4-9-1) and Bulldogs (13-4) had scattered scoring opportunities in the early going, but not a lot of shots on goal. In fact, there were only six combined shots on target in the entire first half, one of those Woods’ direct kick into the top left corner at point-blank range past Streator’s diving keeper, Monse Gonzalez.

That 1-0 score remained for the opening 29 minutes, 52 seconds of the second half. Washington increasingly was winning possession, controlling the ball and mounting attacks, finally cashing one of those offensive opportunities in with Toft’s impressive, hanging line drive from the sideline and into the net with just over 10 minutes remaining.

“Yeah, that was a great hit,” Washington coach Noel Zerbonia said. “A nice turn, a nice cut-in, and then she put it on goal. Nice upper-90 shot. ...

“The biggest thing today was, we were trying to take advantage of what was given to us. The field’s rough [because of dry conditions] and smaller, so we just had to play within those confines and find a way to dig out a goal. And we found a couple nice goals today.”

Those two virtually unstoppable goals were the only two of Washington’s 12 shots on goal to sneak past Gonzalez, who recorded 10 saves and was aided by especially strong defensive showings from teammates Joey Puetz, Ellie Isermann and Josie Goerne.

“My defensive line talks really well,” Gonzalez said. “Saying who they’ve got and who they’re marking and making sure we’re all staying tough and playing together as a team. Joey and Ellie and Josie really work hard all game long to ensure that I don’t get a lot of action.

“No. 20 [Toft] just had a really good shot, and there was that penalty. There’s nothing you can really do about those. You’ve just got to get over it and get the next one.”

Her counterpart, Washington keeper Gracie VanQuakebeke, needed to make only two saves for the shutout. Defender Rachel Caruthers was a big part of that, disrupting the Streator offensive attacks that became increasingly fewer and farther apart.

While Streator and Washington are both in the Class 2A Dunlap Sectional, the Panthers will head to the Morton Regional, which includes the top-seeded hosts and La Salle-Peru.

The Streator Regional will feature four teams playing three games – seventh-seeded Ottawa vs. No. 2 seed Metamora on Tuesday, May 16; No. 4 Streator vs. No. 5 Morris on Wednesday, May 17; and the championship match at 4:30 p.m. Friday, May 19.

The way his Bulldogs matched up with Washington on Friday has Huey looking forward to the challenge.

“I think what today taught us was if we have a high-quality team from that area, we can rise to their level,” Huey said. “I think the state series is going to be a competitive one.”