Girls soccer: Shutout, pair of Anna Russow goals sends Streator past Morris

STREATOR – With the opportunity to win a regional championship on its home field, the Streator girls soccer team took care of possession, tempo and ultimately business early Wednesday with a 2-0 win over Morris.

Streator (17-4) – led by two goals from Anna Russow, a shutout in goal by Monse Gonzalez (five saves) and stellar defensive efforts from Josie Goerne and Joey Puetz – advances to Friday’s 4:30 p.m. Class 3A Streator Regional championship match at the Streator Family YMCA. The Bulldogs lost 4-0 to the regional’s top seed just more than a month ago.

“I feel like we’re going to have it,” Russow said of Friday’s rematch. “I feel like we’re going to win. This year’s our year.”

“We’re a better team than when we played them earlier in the year,” Streator coach J.T. Huey said. “That’s how we’re going to approach it.

“Anything that we’ve struggled with this year has been us struggling to control tempo. Today we did that right off the bat.”

Morris (12-8-3) sees its season come to and with a second two-goal loss to the Bulldogs, the first coming March 27.

“Our whole backline and our keepers have all been strong, but not enough [scoring opportunities]” Morris coach David Valdivia said. “With just two seniors, I feel like we’ll come back [next spring] even stronger, and having been coached by me for two years now, they’re understanding the system.

“But honestly, we couldn’t even play our game today, because Streator disrupted everything.”

“But honestly, we couldn’t even play our game today, because Streator disrupted everything.”

—  David Valdivia, Morris girls soccer coach

The match’s only two goals came early and late.

Russow’s first found the net just 6 minutes, 19 seconds after kickoff when sophomore Ady Lopez emerged with the ball in traffic along the sideline and sent a lob shot over the Morris defense to the other side of the field. Russow, all alone, collected it and drove, giving Morris keeper Maggie Stuebinger [15 saves against two goals allowed] no chance to stop a laser beam into the top corner.

“I just took a chip over the other players, and [Russow] got to it and scored” Lopez said. “That’s all there was to it, really. I was on the outside waiting for it and chipped it over everybody else.”

While the Bulldogs dominated possession for the most part on their way to an 18-5 advantage in shots on goal, the score remained 1-0 through the final 33:41 of the first half as well as the opening 33:34 of the second half.

Russow finally broke that drought and gave the regional hosts some insurance with 16:26 remaining. Lurking in center field, the senior knocked a Stuebinger goal kick out of the air, put a quick touch on it to set herself up and then delivered a left-footed strike before the Morris keeper could backtrack to defend her net.

“It was a good goal, especially because it was a left-foot too,” Russow said. “I definitely don’t have very many of those. I thought [the goal kick] was going to go over me. I definitely wasn’t expecting it whatsoever.”

Gonzalez only needed to stop five shots to notch the shutout, aided strongly by the play of Illiana Gomez, Puetz and especially the sweeper, Goerne. Morris’ closest opportunity came with 24:30 remaining in a 1-0 match, when Abby Henson got a great strike on the ball but saw it hit the center of the crossbar and ricochet harmlessly away.

Morris’ Skylar Sparks also shined defensively, including a non-goalie save in front of an open net.