Jaida Modesto, Genoa-Kingston win 9th straight as expectations keep rising for Cogs

GENOA – According to IHSA records, the Genoa-Kingston girls soccer team has won more than nine games in a season only seven times since 2002.

With a 3-0 win over Rockford Christian on Thursday, the Cogs picked up their ninth straight win. And with the winning streak comes some increased expectations for the Cogs.

“One of our goals right now is to win regionals,” said Jaida Modesto, who scored the first goal of the game for the Cogs in the second half. “And with our streak going, I think we can really do it.”

The Cogs improved to 11-2 on the season and 3-0 in Big Northern Conference play with the win. It’s the fifth-most wins in program history, and there are nine more regular-season games to go.

As the year has gone on and the wins have piled up, coach Holly Lippold has adjusted the team’s goals. Originally the Cogs were gunning for a top-3 finish in the BNC. Now it’s to win it, or at worst take second.

And now the team is optimistic it can win its first regional since 2009.

“They’ve definitely grown,” Lippold said. “We wanted to be top 3 in conference, and now it’s like reality, it’s kind of happening more and more. ... And this year, if we’re going to win, we want to win regionals. That is now the goal moving forward. We want to take the title for regionals. It’s been a long time.”

Lippold said she thought there’d be a couple of holes on the team to start the year, especially at center midfield.

The play of Ayva Hernandez, who has a team-best five assists, has taken care of that issue.

“She’s really filled in that center-mid to be able to feed those balls through and attack when she needs to,” Lippold said.

Lippold said Modesto also could qualify as a new player. Even though she’s a senior, she didn’t play last season.

Modesto said she didn’t expect this level of success for the Cogs.

“To see it happen, our streak right now and everything, everything is going good,” Modesto said. “I am happy to be back, and it’s been fun to play.”

In the first half, the Cogs were peppering the net of Rockford Christian (6-5, 0-4) with shots. It wasn’t until the 54th minute that Modesto broke through for the Cogs.

Modesto said she took the feed from Hernandez and saw the shot.

“It was a good run when she passed it,” Modesto said of her eighth goal of the year. “I just shot it and it went in.”

Seven minutes later, Jaquey Flores scored her fourth goal of the year. Modesto’s shot from the far right side bounced off the Rockford Christian goalie, but Flores was there to bump it home in the 61st minute.

In the 70th minute, Sam Wendt scored her team-leading 11th goal of the year on a roller from the far right side that just caught the upright and rolled in.

“It started out a little slow, but then we kind of got our footing,” Lippold said. “We were able to come back and obviously score three goals in that second half. So that was a good win for us.”

The Cogs will look to push their winning streak to 10 on Tuesday at North Boone (0-5, 0-3).

“Coming into the season, I think we’ve been very aggressive offensively and defensively,” Lippold said. “We’ve been trying to stay very positive with them. Everything we’ve been watching as far as film in the past, moving forward, we’ve just tried to keep it very positive. Nothing like, ‘Oh, we need to do this or that.’ It’s all about them and what they want to do.”