Palatine Breaks Out Against Maine S.

Beware of a defending state champion that begins to solve some ofits problems.

The Palatine Pirates have not had much offensive production thisyear, but on Friday, they scored three goals against a Maine Southteam that had only given up one goal coming into the game.

No. 6 Palatine defeated the No. 5 host Hawks 3-1 and handed themtheir first loss of the season."We've been taking a pounding in our own conference," Palatinecoach Willie Filian said. "Maine South is a good, quality team, andI thought that we played as well as we have this season."It didn't look that way in the beginning for Palatine (8-2-3),though, as the Hawks (8-1) jumped out to a 1-0 lead when sophomoreKrissy Seberhagen one-touched a pass into the net that got byall-state goalie Erin Ekeberg.But Palatine waited just over two minutes to bounce back.That's when Suzanne Ternes kicked in a shot off a scramble after acorner kick.In the second half, junior Kathleen Schager also kicked in agoal after her initial shot was stopped on a corner-kick pass.Thirteen minutes later, Schager sealed the victory when she floated ashot from 35 yards out that sailed over the head of Alice Gleason."They are a great program, and they do a lot of things extremelywell," Maine South coach Tom Kerth said. "They're excellent on deadballs."Our corner-kick defense has been perfect, but we're a shortteam, and we couldn't match up with some of their taller players."The Pirates are hoping to use the momentum of their comebackvictory in Monday's game against Barrington, which leads theMid-Suburban North Conference."We know the things we need to work out," Filian said. "It's atthe point of the season where you have to worry about it."Despite his team's first loss, Kerth was happy with his players'effort."We've been winning, but it hasn't been very pretty," he said."Today we lost, but we lost pretty."