Conant overcomes Fremd for third

It was a Mid-Suburban West grudge match, this time with a state trophy at stake.

Sammi van de Linde scored twice and Kaitlin Chiero had a goal and an assist as Conant reeled off four straight goals to rally from an early deficit for a 4-2 victory Saturday over conference rival Fremd in the Class 3A third-place game.

“We knew what we had to get done and we did not want to lose to Fremd, that’s for sure. It was a big motivation,” van de Linde said.

It is the second state trophy in three years and highest finish in program history for Conant (21-5), which previously finished fourth in 2009.

Chiero sparked the comeback with a rebound goal from point-blank range with 16:04 remaining in the second half to tie the score at 1.

Raetzman scored from 12 yards off an assist from Chiero less than six minutes later before van de Linde stuck a curling shot from the edge of the box to make it 3-1 with 1:45 left in the first half.

“We were like, ‘We don’t want to end our season this way.’ ” Chiero said. “So we were just trying to get pumped up and finish the game we wanted to finish our season. Especially being a senior, I wanted to come out and play the best game I could.”

Lindsay Fillingim made five saves for Conant, which beat Fremd by the same 4-2 scoreline earlier in the season en route to winning the MSL West title.

Alexis Tice had given the Vikings (18-5-3) a dream start when she scored from 21 yards a little more than a minute into the first half before Conant’s four-goal onslaught.

Elise Kotsakis scored her 36th goal of the season with 2:11 left in the second as a late consolation for Fremd, whose players went to their prom after the team’s 1-0 loss to Granite City in the semifinals.

“It’s hard (to get up) after you lose the day before and we had prom last night, so everybody was kind of a little tired,” Kotsakis said. “We showed up parts of the game, but we weren’t there the whole game.”

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