Soccer Team Climbs Back To .500 After Slow Start

Three straight losses can just be written off as a bad week for any high school athletic team.

But there was a shock factor in place for the members of the Evanston girls soccer team after the Wildkits lost three in a row to start the season --- a first for the program --- and only mustered one goal in the process.

The Wildkit players and the ETHS coaching staff had to fight hard to keep doubt from creeping in. And Saturday’s 9-0 slaughter rule trouncing of Walter Payton Prep pulled Evanston back to the break-even mark at 3-3 overall.

Three goals by senior co-captain Bridget Durkin, who also scored a hat trick in a 5-1 triumph over Niles North in the previous game, gave Evanston a lift Saturday at Lazier Field and provided a collective sigh of relief for the host team.

Evanston endured a perfect storm of a tougher than usual schedule in the first week, a couple of injuries, and a team-wide flu epidemic that kept head coach Stacy Salgado from fielding what might have been her “A” lineup in any single game.

Now the Kits are healthy, and back on track.

“It was rough. It was so frustrating,” said Durkin regarding consecutive losses to Plainfield North (3-0), Wheaton Warrenville South (2-0) and Naperville Central (3-1). “Remember, my freshman year on the varsity we only lost a TOTAL of three games. It got us down. It hurt our pride. It was getting to the point where everyone wanted to be the one who was the saving grace for the team. That put a lot more pressure on everyone.

“It got to the point where, as a co-captain (with defender Samantha Caldwell and goalie Kanako Wagner) I told them this is not who Evanston soccer is. We can’t think we’re bad. We’re still a great team and we have to act like it. We just played three really good teams and we weren’t healthy.

“Now we’ve got our groove back.”

The losing streak presented a new challenge for veteran head coach Salgado and assistants Franz Calixte, Ryan Berkley and Matt Frederick as the leaders of one of the most successful programs ever at ETHS.

“We didn’t want the girls to get too down on themselves, and I thought they kept a pretty good attitude through it,” Salgado said. “We usually play easier games at the beginning of the season, and we didn’t want them to lose hope. We wanted them to know that they were (still) capable of being really successful this year.

“We did have some breakdowns in those three games. But it’s early in the season and we have time to fix things. I thought the upperclassmen did a great job of telling the new players that it was OK. The coaches believe in them and that didn’t change. We tried to stress that they shouldn’t put the pressure on themselves, that one girl can’t be the savior. We just have to connect better as a team and the more connected we are, the more success we’ll see.”

Durkin, a four-year member of the varsity squad, admits that she fell into the trap of trying to do too much.

“At the beginning I felt that all of the responsibility (for ETHS wins and losses) fell on me,” she said. “I was doubting my ability to score because players who are attacking (forwards) need to see that ball go into the back of the net.

“But then I realized I’m a passer, an assister, and most of the goals I get are from passes that come back to me. It’s not all me, and I found that again.”

Durkin delivered two goals in a 50-second span at the start of Saturday’s game against Payton, and later converted a pass from Harper Wesenberg that concluded the slaughter rule performance with 17 minutes still left on the clock.

In between, the Kits also counted goals from Olivia Jean-Pierre, Kylie Pressoir, Maya Klein, Sophia Hunwick, Leah George (penalty kick) and Luna Marinaro. The visitors (0-4-1 overall) didn’t put a single shot on goal in the lopsided contest.