Athletics
We ARE the State Champions!
May 30, 2006, 18:04

It is every athlete’s dream to play in the last game of the season, for that means that you have reached the pinnacle, that you have never let up when it counted, and that when the season came down to each match being someone’s last, your team came through with a win.

The Latin girls varsity soccer team (22-1-1) lived every athlete’s dream on Saturday night with an improbable, come-from-behind win in the Class A State Championship game, besting a very tough team from Columbia High School, 3-2, to become the school’s first sports team state champions.

The Loyola Sectional champs marched through the beginning of the hot and steamy state tournament, scoring more goals than any other on Friday evening and Saturday morning to make it to the final game at North Central College in Naperville.

So, when Saturday’s 7 p.m. title match began, the Romans were a bit tired, to say the least. The game began with the Romans and Eagles swapping possessions as neither team kept their passes going the length of the field. Less than 10 minutes into the game, a ref spotted lightning, and the game was called for a mandatory 30-minute break. League officials decided to insert the third and fourth place trophy ceremonies into the proceedings as the teams came back on the field to warm up for the game’s continuation.

By the end of the first half, Latin was down 0-2, victim to a wind-aided goal off a free kick from about 30 yards out that looped over the goalie’s hands, and a more conventional shot—a pretty one from closer range, following an Eagles throw-in.

Latin played with that deficit for much of the game. Latin had some great chances—many of them created by the skillful corner kicks taken by senior Emily Maynard, eight in all--but it wasn’t until 13 and a half minutes into the second half that the Romans got on the scoreboard. Taking a page out of the Eagles’ playbook, Maynard converted a free kick about 40 yards out by skimming it over the line of defenders in a perfect line into the top of the goal. About 14 minutes later, Maynard’s corner kick found the head of Katie Shatto, who calmly placed it perfectly into the corner of the goal.

During this come-back, the Latin fans—numerous and varied—truly became the 12th player. The large student section concocted cheers and stayed on their feet, yelling encouragement through the duration, parents sported banners and signs as they added their voices, and faculty and staff families, along with a decent and respectable showing from alumni cheered as one as it began to seem possible that history was about to crown a new champion.

Energized by the crowds, the goals, and the moment, the Romans got the upper hand. They never gave up on a ball, they put together pass plays that caught the Eagles a bit flat-footed, and they began to start the offense from the defensive position more consistently, until, with under four minutes to play, Maynard did what she had so brilliantly done all game. She dribbled through many defenders and found her fleet-of-foot forward, Lizzy Schink, for a dead-on pass. Schink took the ball at a fast clip, and getting past the remaining two defenders, nudged the ball with her left foot toward the left corner of the goal as her body began to fall to the turf. From that exhausted position sprawled on the ground, she watched the ball pass out of the goalie’s reach, cross the goal line, and catch the net.

The Romans expertly held off the eager Eagles for the remainder of the game and became the school’s first state champions in a team sport.

No team from Chicago has ever won the Class A title.

Eileen Vogl notched two saves. Columbia’s goalie had five. The match was a clean one with only three fouls called on Columbia and one on Latin.

Emily Maynard entered the IHSA record books with her six goals of the tournament, tying Ashlee Pistorius from Geneva in 2002. Maynard also became the school’s career goal leader.

Congratulations to the entire team: seniors Joanna Drew, Kait Holland, Stephanie King, Emily Maynard, and Alexandra Vacin; juniors Alex Case, Victoria Crown, Kristin Eugenio, Dillon Mehrberg, Elizabeth Schink, and Margaret Wardrop; sophomores Lina Feuerstein, Stephanie Goldfein, Dana Linn, Nicole Rothman, Katie Shatto, Eileen Vogl, Chandler Wherry, and Marie Zaro; and freshman Lauren Greenblatt; as well as to coach Tom Bower and assistant coaches Kimberly Geiser and Tim Cronister.


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