Girls soccer: St. Charles North drops heartbreaker on PKs in state championship game
It all came down to the penalty kicks.
After New Trier took a 5-4 advantage in the shootout to decide the Class 3A girls soccer state championship, it came down to Chloe Kirsten to keep St. Charles North’s hopes alive for its first state title in program history.
The whistle blew, and Kirsten sent the ball to the right.
Unfortunately for her and the North Stars athletes and fans watching from afar, so did New Trier goalie Annie Fowler.
North’s quest came to a painful end in the title game, falling to New Trier 4-3 Saturday night at North Central College to settle for second place.
Despite not ending with the state title, North coach Brian Harks said that he wouldn’t trade his group of girls for the world.
“These girls believe in themselves and each other, and there isn’t an ounce of quit amongst the whole group,” Harks said. “I couldn’t be more proud of this team. This was a special season.”
The penalty kicks moved to a sudden death after four of the first five players on both sides managed to find the back of the net. Both teams missed their fourth attempts, as Addy Randall, who scored New Trier’s first two goals in the game, had her shot hit the crossbar before bouncing out and North’s Kayla Floyd had her shot blocked by Fowler.
The North Stars didn’t have their first lead in the game until the 83rd minute of play. After forcing the ball down the field early to start overtime, Rian Spaulding sent a center into the box to find Kaitlyn Glenn, who sent the ball to the left and just out of Fowler’s reach to put North up 3-2.
The lead was short-lived. Five minutes later, New Trier’s Charlotte Dellin managed to get a head on a corner from Annie Paden to tie the game at 3-3.
“Scoring in overtime in a state final is really exciting,” Glenn said. “It’s unfortunate that they got that goal a few minutes later and we fell in PKs, but soccer is just like jazz, anything can happen.”
The North Stars were two minutes away from losing in regulation with New Trier holding a 2-1 lead. But in the 79th minute, Laney Stark forced Fowler, who had just dropped the ball at her feet to try and draw time off of the clock, to pick it up once again, which led to a foul.
After indirectly kicking the ball to herself, Stark lined the ball into the top-left corner of the net for her second goal of the game to draw the score at 2-2 to force overtime.
“There’s no other feeling that could describe that,” Stark said. “It gave our team hope and another chance to keep fighting and I think my team did that, and I’m so happy I was able to give them that chance.”
Stark also scored the first goal of the game for North in the 36th minute to tie the game at 1-1 heading into halftime. After pushing the ball down towards the left side of the goal, the Wisconsin-Green Bay commit worked her way around three defenders before taking a shot while falling and managed to lift the ball over Fowler and into the back of the net.
Stark, who joined the North Stars her junior year after spending her first two seasons at Bartlett, said that playing for this team has meant everything.
“I wouldn’t trade these two years for anything,” Stark said. “I loved those girls. I had my first two years and I love these girls now. I don’t think I would trade this experience for anything in the world.”
The North Stars end the season with a 19-3-5 record, along with their best finish at state since 2012, when they lost to Naperville North 1-0 in overtime.
They also earned second place in 2004, losing to New Trier 2-1 in the state final.