Bechtel sets standards at Plainfield North
Senior breaks school goal mark, leads by example
By Chris Walker
He found it on a bus ride March 9.
After competing for the Plainfield North team for the first time in more than a year and then celebrating a 4-1 victory with his teammates on the bus ride back to school from Minooka, Tigers senior Shea Bechtel finally figured out what that nagging feeling that he was missing something was -- being and playing on a high school soccer team.
“After getting on the bus and celebrating the win I realized how much I really missed high school soccer,” Bechtel said.
“I missed being around my teammates, especially all the seniors, people I’ve played with since I was seven years old and throughout high school. To get to play these last games and being able to have this season is a celebration of high school soccer. It comes at the end of year and is culminating with us getting to play with our friends one more time.”
Bechtel is not just playing well at Plainfield North this spring -- he’s chiseling his name in the record books while the Tigers, who are ranked 24th in the Chicagoland Soccer Top 25, play fantastic soccer.
During a 5-2 victory at home against Oswego East on March 23, Bechtel scored three goals to push his four-year total at Plainfield North to 50, surpassing the previous school-record of 48 goals by Austin Collier (2013-2015).
“I think it actually turned out to be a lot more goals than originally expected,” he said. “Coming in freshman year, I was told I’d be able to participate on the varsity team but didn’t really expect much to come of that, and then got moved up for the first game and then got the first goal, and they’ve come pretty often since.”
After a 2-1 loss in the Class 3A Naperville Central Regional to the host Redhawks in 2019, Bechtel was left within striking distance of the scoring record while he and the Tigers licked their wounds after a heartbreaking title-game loss.
There was always next year for the underclassmen, until there almost wasn’t.
“I never realized how close I was to (the record) until after the end (of junior year) and seeing that I was only 12 (goals) away from it and 13 to break it,” he said. “I thought I could actually do this. It’s kind of surreal to even do it. I mean, as a freshman to even be on the varsity and to now be able to break the scoring record for the school.”
As preparations began for the fall season in 2020, the kids were introduced to new coach, Lukasz Majewski, who didn’t know what to expect from the team he inherited. Majewski had heard a snippet about a smallish kid with a motor like a Ferrari in Bechtel.
“I didn’t know what to expect coming in there,” Majewski said. “Actually his (Bechtel’s) name was brought up to me from a friend who had seen him play at the club level and said he was a kid to look out for.
“I figured I’ll see what we’ll have when I got there. With the camp and contact days it was pretty evident this kid is a difference-maker. And not only his soccer IQ, but just his work ethic. The kid refuses to quit. He just pushes as hard as he can every single time in training sessions and in games. He’s a high-motor kid, but high-motor kids take plays off. He will never do that.”
Last fall came and went without a soccer season, leaving seniors like Bechtel uncertain about whether they’d ever play again for their school. What he did determine was that he would play in college and verbally committed to St. Olaf.
“The school really fits my personality,” he said. “It really feels like a family. It’s amazing and where I’ll be able to further develop myself the best.”
He finishes on the soccer field, and he gets the job done extremely well in the classroom.
“My parents were always academics first,” he said. “I’ve worked hard academically and finding success academically also helped me achieve success on and off the soccer field. It really has helped me to have parents instilling that hard work will get you where you need to be, and to be friendly and enjoy being around people.”
Watching Bechtel play, it’s obvious he’s locked into what’s happening on the field, working with his teammates, providing leadership, pouncing on opportunities to make the opponents pay the price of giving up dangerous chances, you know, big-time contributions.
“I like to be friendly and to include people,” he said. “I love being around people. It’s what makes soccer great for me, to constantly be around my teammates, my brothers, all the time. I’ve really enjoyed being involved in the soccer program here. It’s helped me a lot mentally and soccer has helped me grow as a person, creating relationships and responsibilities, helped me develop into who I am.”
The two-time team captain has earned all-conference and all-sectional accolades, and led the Tigers in scoring the past two seasons. Now he has also set the standard by which all Plainfield North boys soccer scorers will be measured.
And his skills aren’t lost on others either.
“I think he’s the best player in the conference,” Oswego East coach Steve Szymanski said. “He makes their team go. You have to know where he is at all times, because he is so dangerous.”
Bechtel believes he’s become an even bigger threat than ever.
“I think the biggest thing I’ve improved is my finishing and goal-scoring ability,” he said. “I think I don’t necessarily have a chip on my shoulder, but a knack for going into a game and not saying I’m going to score three goals, but I’m going in and can help the team by scoring or with a pass. It’s my effectiveness on the team to score or help score.”
At just 5-foot-7, Bechtel’s been battling against bigger bodies most of his life, something he had to especially adjust to when taking the field as a freshman.
“I’m one of the smaller guys on the field so I’ve learned how to use my body,” he said. “Going up against juniors and seniors (as a freshman) I learned to use my body and make it difficult to take me off the ball, and protect myself from the defender -- not only keeping and passing and dribbling, but being able to protect the ball and maneuver the ball to put me in a better position to score.”
He’s been playing center mid and center attacking mid throughout his time at Plainfield North, but plays outside wide for his Galaxy club team. He’s cherished the opportunity to shine in any role for both programs.
“I love it. I think it really helps me in high school when I’m man-marked with big guys battling, and I can get in a wing spot and be effective there too and help create by utilizing all the space that I have.”
Always soaking in the game-time experiences, Bechtel’s been able to use a lot of his knowledge from club games and carry it over to his dominant play on the high school team.
“I never grew up as a center mid, I was always attacking out wide,” he said. “My skill set has helped me at center mid at high school. I see the two positions really similarly through attacking mid is less defending, it’s more of a free role, but the positions can go hand-in-hand.”
Majewski has seen him seemingly do it all in a short time.
“He’s scoring all the goals; he’s a prolific scorer who knows how to find the back of net from close range and even from long range,” he said. “He’s not afraid to hit a ball from 20-30 yards outside the box.
“He’s a nice combination of everything: speed, power and ability to finish. To us, I definitely know he’s a mentor to our kids. Our program has seven sophomores, and I believe anywhere from six to seven are in the starting lineup. It’s just nice to have a kid of that ability with the work ethic leading by example, and it’s not just showing up for games, it’s in training sessions, it’s film. It’s going through set plays.”
He’s also grown into a leader that’s willing to adapt to the best interests of the team.
“I think in years’ past he thought he had to do everything himself, and he sometimes tried too much,” Majewski said.
“Obviously, I didn’t see him play, but I know he’s become a true leader in sharing the responsibilities and making the kids around him better. It’s a huge sign of becoming a leader, becoming a man.”
With a new coach, a truncated season, no state series and plans to play in college all wrapped up, some athletes might not see the need to play their final high school year, but Bechtel has seen it as another challenge, another new opportunity in a sport he loves and a few more weeks to hang with his buddies. And that’s probably why he’s been all in since Day One and probably why the Tigers (7-1-1) are one of the top teams in the area.
“We made use of every single contact day and preseason and practice and made them all count,” Bechtel said. “They helped bring the team together. We’ve got a lot of sophomores, so we had to get them acclimated to the speed of play. When we played our first game it didn’t feel like we were thrown on the field for the first time. It felt like we were ready to go for the first game.”
Just like Bechtel has been literally since day one in a Tigers uniform.
Seemingly a lifetime ago, in Plainfield North’s season-opener on Aug. 22, 2017, Bechtel made an offensive zone steal late in the first half and was tripped up right outside of the box setting up a free kick that resulted in Oliver Fisher’s game-winning goal in a 2-0 decision against Romeoville.
What a start, and what a finish it’s looking to be for the all-time leading scorer in Plainfield North school history.
Senior breaks school goal mark, leads by example
By Chris Walker
He found it on a bus ride March 9.
After competing for the Plainfield North team for the first time in more than a year and then celebrating a 4-1 victory with his teammates on the bus ride back to school from Minooka, Tigers senior Shea Bechtel finally figured out what that nagging feeling that he was missing something was -- being and playing on a high school soccer team.
“After getting on the bus and celebrating the win I realized how much I really missed high school soccer,” Bechtel said.
“I missed being around my teammates, especially all the seniors, people I’ve played with since I was seven years old and throughout high school. To get to play these last games and being able to have this season is a celebration of high school soccer. It comes at the end of year and is culminating with us getting to play with our friends one more time.”
Bechtel is not just playing well at Plainfield North this spring -- he’s chiseling his name in the record books while the Tigers, who are ranked 24th in the Chicagoland Soccer Top 25, play fantastic soccer.
During a 5-2 victory at home against Oswego East on March 23, Bechtel scored three goals to push his four-year total at Plainfield North to 50, surpassing the previous school-record of 48 goals by Austin Collier (2013-2015).
“I think it actually turned out to be a lot more goals than originally expected,” he said. “Coming in freshman year, I was told I’d be able to participate on the varsity team but didn’t really expect much to come of that, and then got moved up for the first game and then got the first goal, and they’ve come pretty often since.”
After a 2-1 loss in the Class 3A Naperville Central Regional to the host Redhawks in 2019, Bechtel was left within striking distance of the scoring record while he and the Tigers licked their wounds after a heartbreaking title-game loss.
There was always next year for the underclassmen, until there almost wasn’t.
“I never realized how close I was to (the record) until after the end (of junior year) and seeing that I was only 12 (goals) away from it and 13 to break it,” he said. “I thought I could actually do this. It’s kind of surreal to even do it. I mean, as a freshman to even be on the varsity and to now be able to break the scoring record for the school.”
As preparations began for the fall season in 2020, the kids were introduced to new coach, Lukasz Majewski, who didn’t know what to expect from the team he inherited. Majewski had heard a snippet about a smallish kid with a motor like a Ferrari in Bechtel.
“I didn’t know what to expect coming in there,” Majewski said. “Actually his (Bechtel’s) name was brought up to me from a friend who had seen him play at the club level and said he was a kid to look out for.
“I figured I’ll see what we’ll have when I got there. With the camp and contact days it was pretty evident this kid is a difference-maker. And not only his soccer IQ, but just his work ethic. The kid refuses to quit. He just pushes as hard as he can every single time in training sessions and in games. He’s a high-motor kid, but high-motor kids take plays off. He will never do that.”
Last fall came and went without a soccer season, leaving seniors like Bechtel uncertain about whether they’d ever play again for their school. What he did determine was that he would play in college and verbally committed to St. Olaf.
“The school really fits my personality,” he said. “It really feels like a family. It’s amazing and where I’ll be able to further develop myself the best.”
He finishes on the soccer field, and he gets the job done extremely well in the classroom.
“My parents were always academics first,” he said. “I’ve worked hard academically and finding success academically also helped me achieve success on and off the soccer field. It really has helped me to have parents instilling that hard work will get you where you need to be, and to be friendly and enjoy being around people.”
Watching Bechtel play, it’s obvious he’s locked into what’s happening on the field, working with his teammates, providing leadership, pouncing on opportunities to make the opponents pay the price of giving up dangerous chances, you know, big-time contributions.
“I like to be friendly and to include people,” he said. “I love being around people. It’s what makes soccer great for me, to constantly be around my teammates, my brothers, all the time. I’ve really enjoyed being involved in the soccer program here. It’s helped me a lot mentally and soccer has helped me grow as a person, creating relationships and responsibilities, helped me develop into who I am.”
The two-time team captain has earned all-conference and all-sectional accolades, and led the Tigers in scoring the past two seasons. Now he has also set the standard by which all Plainfield North boys soccer scorers will be measured.
And his skills aren’t lost on others either.
“I think he’s the best player in the conference,” Oswego East coach Steve Szymanski said. “He makes their team go. You have to know where he is at all times, because he is so dangerous.”
Bechtel believes he’s become an even bigger threat than ever.
“I think the biggest thing I’ve improved is my finishing and goal-scoring ability,” he said. “I think I don’t necessarily have a chip on my shoulder, but a knack for going into a game and not saying I’m going to score three goals, but I’m going in and can help the team by scoring or with a pass. It’s my effectiveness on the team to score or help score.”
At just 5-foot-7, Bechtel’s been battling against bigger bodies most of his life, something he had to especially adjust to when taking the field as a freshman.
“I’m one of the smaller guys on the field so I’ve learned how to use my body,” he said. “Going up against juniors and seniors (as a freshman) I learned to use my body and make it difficult to take me off the ball, and protect myself from the defender -- not only keeping and passing and dribbling, but being able to protect the ball and maneuver the ball to put me in a better position to score.”
He’s been playing center mid and center attacking mid throughout his time at Plainfield North, but plays outside wide for his Galaxy club team. He’s cherished the opportunity to shine in any role for both programs.
“I love it. I think it really helps me in high school when I’m man-marked with big guys battling, and I can get in a wing spot and be effective there too and help create by utilizing all the space that I have.”
Always soaking in the game-time experiences, Bechtel’s been able to use a lot of his knowledge from club games and carry it over to his dominant play on the high school team.
“I never grew up as a center mid, I was always attacking out wide,” he said. “My skill set has helped me at center mid at high school. I see the two positions really similarly through attacking mid is less defending, it’s more of a free role, but the positions can go hand-in-hand.”
Majewski has seen him seemingly do it all in a short time.
“He’s scoring all the goals; he’s a prolific scorer who knows how to find the back of net from close range and even from long range,” he said. “He’s not afraid to hit a ball from 20-30 yards outside the box.
“He’s a nice combination of everything: speed, power and ability to finish. To us, I definitely know he’s a mentor to our kids. Our program has seven sophomores, and I believe anywhere from six to seven are in the starting lineup. It’s just nice to have a kid of that ability with the work ethic leading by example, and it’s not just showing up for games, it’s in training sessions, it’s film. It’s going through set plays.”
He’s also grown into a leader that’s willing to adapt to the best interests of the team.
“I think in years’ past he thought he had to do everything himself, and he sometimes tried too much,” Majewski said.
“Obviously, I didn’t see him play, but I know he’s become a true leader in sharing the responsibilities and making the kids around him better. It’s a huge sign of becoming a leader, becoming a man.”
With a new coach, a truncated season, no state series and plans to play in college all wrapped up, some athletes might not see the need to play their final high school year, but Bechtel has seen it as another challenge, another new opportunity in a sport he loves and a few more weeks to hang with his buddies. And that’s probably why he’s been all in since Day One and probably why the Tigers (7-1-1) are one of the top teams in the area.
“We made use of every single contact day and preseason and practice and made them all count,” Bechtel said. “They helped bring the team together. We’ve got a lot of sophomores, so we had to get them acclimated to the speed of play. When we played our first game it didn’t feel like we were thrown on the field for the first time. It felt like we were ready to go for the first game.”
Just like Bechtel has been literally since day one in a Tigers uniform.
Seemingly a lifetime ago, in Plainfield North’s season-opener on Aug. 22, 2017, Bechtel made an offensive zone steal late in the first half and was tripped up right outside of the box setting up a free kick that resulted in Oliver Fisher’s game-winning goal in a 2-0 decision against Romeoville.
What a start, and what a finish it’s looking to be for the all-time leading scorer in Plainfield North school history.