By Matt le cren
For the Bugle
www.buglenewspapers.com
Lisle goalkeeper Grace Hoscheidt walked off the field Saturday at North Central College with a look of exhaustion on her face and an ice bag on her injured thigh.
In that, she wasn’t alone.
Hoscheidt and the Lions clinched the program’s third Class 1A fourth-place state trophy last week when they defeated Stillman Valley 4-0 in a supersectional game at Benedictine University.
But their quest to outdo their finest finish ever came up short in a 2-1 loss to Herscher in the third-place game.
Hoscheidt, a 5-foot-1 junior, was one of several Lisle players who suffered various knocks in Friday’s 5-0 semifinal loss to eventual state champion Columbia, a powerhouse team that went unbeaten against Illinois opponents this season. But she gutted through the discomfort to make eight saves against Herscher, including a brilliant stop on a breakaway by Mattie Brown with 17:40 left in a 1-1 game.
“I wish I could have done better but in the previous game I got an injury to my thigh and it was just much harder to (put weight) on it,” Hoscheidt said. “So I played the best I could.
“I need improvement, just like everybody else, and I wish we could have won, but the better team won today.”
The Tigers (24-5), who beat the Lions 3-2 during the regular season, were indeed the superior team, at least in the second half during which they controlled most of the possession.
Brown scored the game-tying goal on a 15-yard rocket from the left side of the penalty area with 27:08 remaining. Lisle’s one good second-half scoring chance came with 19:50 remaining when sophomore Tara Kane sent a lead pass into the box for senior star Alexa Fasone, but Herscher goalie Rourke Zigrossi came out and smothered the ball just before Fasone got to it.
The Tigers got the game-winning goal with 8:22 left. Jillian Milton poked a pass in front to Chloe Walsh for a point-blank shot. Hoscheidt got in front of the shot but the ball squirted under her arm and into the net.
“It was spinning, so I had the ball but not enough (of it),” Hoscheidt said. “I had an opening (under her arm) and it kind of squirmed through.”
The Lions (18-3-2) are now 0-6 all-time in games at the state finals, having also gone 0-2 in 2010 and 2012. But they did notch one noteworthy achievement when sophomore defender Madison Manns became the first Lisle player to score at the state finals.
Manns gave the Lions a 1-0 lead with 32:47 left in the first half when she converted an eight-yard shot in traffic after Herscher failed to clear a corner kick.
“I was honestly in shock,” Manns said. “I didn’t process it at first.
“That was everything. We had to push. We just had to give it our all and try as hard as we could.”
The Lions did that. Despite the loss, Lisle coach Paul Kohorn, who has won 196 games in his 16-year tenure at Lisle, applauded the effort.
“I’m proud of this team,” Kohorn said. “We were so beat up after yesterday’s game.
“We had so many girls out there playing injured. Of our 21 girls we probably have 14 of them with ice somewhere, so it was hard for us to fully compete, but we did our best.”
Yet Hoscheidt was left feeling as if the Lions have yet to reach their potential.
“I thought we played well but not as best we could,” Hoscheidt said. “We have a lot of improvement that we could have done and I hope that we’re back next year.”
That’s not a far-fetched goal. The Lions must replace star forwards Fasone, who had 37 goals and 13 assists, and McKenzie Weaver, who finished with 23 goals and 15 assists.
But Lisle returns 17 players, including eight starters. Besides Hoscheidt and Manns, notable underclassmen include Kane, who had 23 goals and eight assists, freshman Emma Weaver, who ended her impressive rookie season with 17 goals and 14 assists, and Fasone’s sister Emma, a sophomore who contributed six goals and five assists.
“Most of our starters are underclassmen,” Emma Fasone said. “Next year we really want more people to step up and help out with the team.
“To me, we’re so connected now that when we grow together over the next (couple) seasons, we’ll be better as a team.”
Weaver and Alexa Fasone will not be playing in college but their impact on the program cannot be understated. They led the Lions to a 35-5-3 record over the past two seasons, tying the school record for wins in 2018 and breaking it in 2019.
“They’re all great leaders,” Emma Fasone said. “They set really good examples for us so we can succeed in the future without them.”
Kohorn hopes that includes a return to the state finals.
“We’re going to miss our seniors because they were fantastic this year, but we are pretty young,” Kohorn said. “We only started three seniors and one junior.
“We’ve got some good stuff coming back and hopefully we’re in the hunt to come back here next year and do a little bit better.”