Lady Hubs varsity soccer coach Chris Blevins saw some positive efforts from the Rochelle offense when the purple and white hosted Ottawa on Monday. But despite breaking their four-game scoring drought with two goals against the Lady Pirates, the Lady Hubs were unable to break their losing streak, falling by a score of 7-2 to drop to 1-9-1 overall.
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ROCHELLE — Lady Hubs varsity soccer coach Chris Blevins saw some positive efforts from the Rochelle offense when the purple and white hosted Ottawa on Monday. But despite breaking their four-game scoring drought with two goals against the Lady Pirates, the Lady Hubs were unable to break their losing streak, falling by a score of 7-2 to drop to 1-9-1 overall.
“We were making better runs up front than we were last week,” Blevins said. “We’re trying to build our teamwork back up and get our communication to where it needs to be… We made good runs in the second half and we were moving the ball outside and making some nice crosses.”
Rochelle had been outscored 30-0 over its previous four games since drawing Hinckley-Big Rock, but junior Gillian Higby (38’) scored on a pass by junior Olivia Piloni to put the Lady Hubs on the board before the end of the first half after Ottawa jumped ahead with four consecutive goals (12’, 20’, 31’ and 35’). Junior Sarah Craven and senior Brittany Brown each recorded two shots on goal in the first half.
The Lady Pirates used the wind to their advantage in the first half, capitalizing on long throws from the sideline and big through balls to beat the Rochelle defensive line and create 1-on-1 opportunities around the Lady Hub goal.
“We have to hold our lines and we can’t just stop,” Blevins said. “Ottawa was going as soon as it got the ball and we were waiting to see if whistles were going to blow for an offside trap. We were trailing a lot and one thing we talked about is, once the through ball goes, you go until you hear a whistle because it may not be offside.”
Two quick goals by the Lady Pirates in the second half put Ottawa ahead 6-1 before Piloni (55’) netted Rochelle’s second goal of the evening. The Lady Pirates added one final goal to ice the victory, and although Rochelle totaled 16 shots on goal, the Lady Hubs will need to regroup quickly for their home game against DeKalb on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. Sophomore Viviana Belmonte recorded nine saves for Rochelle on Monday.
“Viviana did a nice job in the back,” Blevins said.” She had a lot of pressure on her. Olivia was making things happen for us in the middle, and I felt like we were almost there today but we needed to come out with a little more intensity. Gillian had some nice runs and crosses up front as well.”
