Trinity Girls Keeps Title Hopes Alive

Lillie Henderson’s first goal of the season was an important one.

The senior’s header gave the Trinity girls soccer team an early lead against Regina Dominican Friday afternoon. The host Blazers added two goals in the second half to register a 3-0 Girls Catholic Athletic Conference Red Division victory at Triton College in River Grove.

The win kept Trinity’s division title hopes alive. The Blazers (9-3-2, 3-1-1) play at Red leader Loyola on Monday.

Trinity got off to a good start thanks to Henderson, who used her head on a corner kick to give her team a 1-0 lead. She scored five times a year ago, but has been asked to focus more on defense this season. 

“I was really excited because my whole goal this year was to just score since I’m playing so far back in a position that I really don’t go up on,” Henderson said. “And I scored on a header, and I never score on a header, so I was really happy.”

“She’s having a good season,” Trinity coach Dave Preston said. “She’s accepted her role as more of a defender/midfielder instead of an offensive threat.”

Midway into the second half, Trinity junior Kim Gingell scored from 10 yards outside the box with a shot that floated over Regina Dominican goalkeeper Dana Darwish and under the crossbar to make it 2-0. Junior Lizzie Brown chipped in a late goal on a shot from inside the left side of the box for the final score.

Trinity senior Jessica Schak recorded her seventh shutout of the season. Her top save came shortly after the Blazers moved ahead 1-0. Regina Dominican’s Helen Galliani had a breakaway chance, but Schak stopped her at point-blank range.

“She’s having a great senior year,” Preston said of his goalkeeper.

Regina Dominican (6-8. 1-4) played without its leading scorer, senior captain Sarah Monick, who left school earlier in the day sick.

“There wasn’t a lot of quality,” Panthers coach Paul Agombar said of the match. “I think that was a Friday afternoon performance from us. I’m not taking anything away from them. They obviously had more chances. Trinity deserved to win. There’s no doubt about that.”

Agombar wasn’t the only one who saw room for improvement.

“We can play better,” Gingell said.

Preston agreed.

“We’ve been rained out a lot,” he said. “Getting a game in is important. It’s the first time we’ve been out on a grass field playing in the 10 days. I thought we played very sloppy. We’ve been in the gym a lot. We didn’t move the ball well. Technically we were lousy. We were very off.”

The Blazers will have to play better to beat Loyola, which is ranked No. 2 in the Chicago area.

“They have to come on the field thinking they can play with ’em,” Preston said of his players. “As coaches, we still feel like we’re under-performing. We have a lot of talent this year, but we’re just not performing. We’re waiting for the breakout game and we’re hoping it’s going to be Monday.”