Illinois Girls 3A state semifinal recap

<strong>Barrington 2, Evanston 0</strong> Junior midfielder [player_tooltip player_id="22081" first="Brooke" last="Brown"] put on a show for Barrington. Five minutes in, she played a corner kick to [player_tooltip player_id="33353" first="Piper" last="Lucier"], setting up [player_tooltip player_id="42378" first="Kate" last="Lubinsky"] for a goal with her head. Throughout the first half, Brown controlled the attacking midfield and created so many chances for the fillies. She had another great chance off of a free kick. Her knuckleball shot from 30 yards out hit the crossbar and bounced away from net. [player_tooltip player_id="33353" first="Piper" last="Lucier"] also made some plays. Throughout the game, I saw her make great runs on the left wing and play a physical brand of soccer. She’s also super quick with the ball and can create space. Barrington led 1-0 at half, but Evanston was starting to create chances. The more they gave Jocelyn Leigh the ball, the better the chances were. Adriana Merriam had a great game in the midfield and found some nice connections. But their biggest standout was keeper Ariel Kite. The junior did everything she possibly could to keep Evanston in the game. A full-arm extension and a block off her line were two of the most impressive plays from the game. Even with all these standouts, [player_tooltip player_id="22081" first="Brooke" last="Brown"] and Barrington continued to capitalize. They doubled the lead about 10 minutes into the second half. Nicole Gwaisda volleyed in a corner kick from [player_tooltip player_id="22081" first="Brooke" last="Brown"]. Barrington would hold on for the win. &nbsp; <strong>Metea Valley 2, Lincoln-Way Central 0</strong> Metea Valley applied the pressure early. An attacking trio of Jordan Lange, Lucy Burk, and [player_tooltip player_id="22221" first="Tyra" last="King"] created problems for LWC throughout the first half. In the 14th minute, King used her above-average size and blazing speed to get herself past a defender off a counter attack. This led to Lucy Burk making a run in the box for the opening goal of the game. 12 minutes later, Burk displayed some excellent dribbling skills and crossed the ball into King, where she added a goal to make it 2-0. The score would remain 2-0 at half. But Lincoln-Way Central wouldn’t go away. I really liked the performance from [player_tooltip player_id="22094" first="Christine" last="Erdman"]. I saw her play as a winger and outside back in this game. She’s small, but super versatile and has lots of other skills. A cross into the box created an excellent scoring opportunity. While playing on the wing, she made some excellent runs to create some nice scoring opportunities. Center Back Grace Grundhofer also put more pressure on the Metea defense. She has a strong leg and can play a great long ball from the back line. She did this a lot in the second half to get the ball closer to goal. But Metea and their defense was too much to handle. Tyra’s older sister Justice King had an awesome game on the back line. She had a massive block in the final 2 minutes to keep a clean sheet and advance to the championship against Barrington. Jordan Lange also had a great game for Metea. She’s a smaller midfielder, but got past players with ease. She also showed tremendous ball skills.