H-F handles Sandburg convincingly

Updated: May 27, 2011 9:21PM

Despite his team’s 2-0 regular-season loss to Sandburg, Homewood-Flossmoor girls soccer coach Charlie Ward said he had a good feeling about Friday’s rematch in the championship game of the Class 3A Mother McAuley Sectional.

Still, even he couldn’t have predicted how convincingly the Vikings punched their ticket to the Elite 8.

Kelly Lewers scored twice and Ali Farkos added a goal and an assist as H-F rolled to a stunning 3-0 win over the Eagles at Brother Rice.

“They kicked our butts the first time,” Ward said, “but we learned from it. We figured out how to counter-attack them and when we scored first, it allowed us to play with more confidence.”

H-F (21-2) will meet Granite City (17-6) — a 1-0 winner over Lincoln-Way Central in the Joliet Central Sectional final — at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Normal SuperSectional.

Farkos and Lewers have connected many times, and they did it again on the all-important first goal.

Midway through the first half, the Vikings caught Sandburg (20-4-1) in transition as Farkos took the ball at midfield and delivered a perfectly-placed pass, leading Lewers into the box.

Diving goalkeeper Victoria Kappel got a piece of Lewers’ shot, but it trickled into the right corner of the net

“It was such a great ball from Ali,” Lewers said. “We play great together. She always knows where I am.

“The first goal was huge, because I think (Sandburg) thought ‘Oh, we got this.’ Getting that put a little pressure on them.”

The Vikings’ backline shut down Sandburg over the next 30 minutes, and when the Eagles started taking some chances, H-F made them pay.

After a Lewers shot off a throw-in got deflected, resulting in a loose ball, Farkos rushed in to deliver a strong strike from just outside the box that beat Kappel (2 saves) to make it a 2-0 game with 12:41 to go.

Lewers delivered the exclamation point, scoring on a breakaway with 3:56 left.

Kim Boehm made one save for the shutout.

Sandburg, meanwhile, never got in sync. H-F had a big edge in possession with its midfielders controlling play.

“We picked a bad time to play bad soccer,” Sandburg coach Desi Vuillaume said. “I don’t think we had our composure early and it cascaded from there.”

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