Samantha Austin’s goal sends Nazareth girls soccer to state for first time

WHEATON – Nazareth lost five straight games in May, but it doesn’t matter now that the Roadrunners have won five in a row.

Their latest streak includes a 2-1 victory over Belvidere North in Tuesday’s Class 2A St. Francis Supersectional that sent the Roadrunners to the state semifinals for the first time in program history.

“The depth I thought, you know, came through,” Nazareth coach Roberto Cianci said. “I think we had 15 or 16 games with 16 different starters. It’s been a lot of moving parts and it showed today, and it was great.”

Junior midfielder Lily Martinez drove down the sideline before crossing the ball deep into the box to sophomore forward Samantha Austin, who buried it inside the near post to break the 1-1 tie with 24:38 left to play.

“Lily played a really good cross and I was in the right place at the right time,” Austin said. “She got the long ball down the sideline and I just finished. It was really a team effort.”

Belvidere North (19-3-2) had only two losses coming in, dropping regular-season games to Boylan Catholic and Burlington Central. Nazareth (16-10-1) is the only team alive among the three classes with as many as 10 losses.

Stiff competition from big, tough 3A schools ultimately helped the Roadrunners.

“We always practice physicality for this type of game,” Austin said. “I think it was important for us with passing. I think those [earlier] games and how we responded to adversity against other teams and coming back from those losses against teams that are maybe doing better than us at the time or are bigger schools made us stronger for this.”

The Blue Thunder struck first, getting a goal from Haylee Gallas with 28:11 left to play in the first half. Gallas was able to follow the carom of her shot off Nazareth sophomore goalkeeper Ana Djurasovic.

The timing of the equalizer was huge.

Junior Ava Berner sent in a cross with 2:31 remaining before halftime and sophomore Molly Moore blasted it into the back of the net for Nazareth.

“I just had to put it in and we were going into halftime 1-1 and wanting to keep putting the pressure on and don’t stop,” Moore said. “We’ve progressed so much this season. We’re talking much better, moving the ball better, the team chemistry has gotten so much better. We’re doing great together.”

Gallas and the Blue Thunder didn’t go away easily. After junior Cecelia Papoccia sailed a 20-yard free kick wide left with just under three minutes remaining, Gallas was able to produce two dangerous opportunities, lining one attempt directly to Djurasovic and rolling another toward her in the final 12 seconds.

Nazareth will face St. Ignatius at 12:30 p.m. Friday in a state semifinal at North Central College in Naperville.

The Roadrunners dropped a 4-0 game to St. Ignatius on May 12, the middle game of their five-game slide.

“Playing those 3A schools definitely helped in these pressure moments like that today,” Cianci said. “I thought they did masterfully. I was really proud of the movement of the ball and it really wasn’t much kick away. We still tried to play the game as much as possible. I’m super proud of them.”

Nazareth previously won sectional titles in 2010 and 2016.