Lisanti wants to take Young to the top
By Patrick Z. McGavin
Growing up in Chicago, life came at Mia Lisanti at a heightened pace. She had to improvise and live spontaneously.
Sports were a natural outlet for her need for competition.
Softball or basketball, the games circled and overlapped seamlessly. The only constant was how good she was at pretty much anything she tried.
At a fortuitous moment, she discovered soccer. The other sports were interesting and exciting, but they also were somewhat in-between in levels of excitement and passion.
At the crucial part of her young life—the moment when things tend to congeal and crystallize —Lisanti saw her future mapped out in front of her.
“Soccer did not really attract me until about seventh or eighth grade,” she said. “Then I had that exponential growth, and the competitor in me just took over.
“My club coach had helped ignite this passion. Suddenly I realized that soccer was something I excelled at compared to all the other sports I had been playing.”
Now a senior at Young, Lisanti has made a deep and profound impression as one of the best players of her generation to come out of the city.
The forward is a two-time Chicagoland Soccer All-Stater. As a junior last year, Lisanti scored 20 goals and contributed 13 assists for the Dolphins (18-7-1), who reached a Class 3A sectional championship last year.
She is one of the primary reasons the Dolphins are ranked no. 11 in Chicagoland Soccer’s First 50 preseason poll. Lisanti leads a group of seven returning starters and other rotational players from last year’s group.
Her presence is the source of a wide and vast sense of optimism.
“Mia makes us go,” Young coach Ross LaBauex said. “I don’t think that is a secret. She is an exemplar of everything I want in a player.
“First is her attitude. She could think, because of what she has accomplished, that she does not have to pick up cones, or have the attitude of a Prima Donna. She has never taken that approach. I have never seen anybody work as hard as she does.”
Lisanti combines speed, a physical presence and a flair for making game-changing plays into a scintillating individual package and skill set.
She is a relentless and constant attacker player who thrives at making dizzying, pincer movements on the goal.
She has a special knack for optimizing every single scoring chance.
“I never play just one way,” Lisanti said. “I really like to see the field. Distribution is probably a big part of my game. I like to move the ball a lot, and I definitely rely on my teammates to get the ball moving.
“When you have good teammates, that makes the job easier.”
Lisanti is an emotional leader. Her drive and determination is a connective thread in fusing together the disparate parts and changing personalities of the team.
The older players have been with her from the start and follow her lead. The younger players groove on her tenacity and free spirit.
“Playing with Mia is so great,” sophomore forward Ella Koleno said. “She is a great leader—on and off the field. She has so much great insight, and we connect really well together up top in our formation.
“She is always in the perfect place.”
From the beginning of her career at Young, Lisanti revealed a determined and intense playing style that privileged the big moment.
She made her first significant reputation by scoring the winning goal in a 1-0 victory over Jones in a showdown of two of the best teams in the Premier Division.
The moment marked her own breakthrough.
“That game specifically was probably the most important game to jumpstart my high school career,” she said. “When I first got to Young, I was pretty shy and timid, and I just wanted to try and adapt to the team, be somebody who helped in.
“Scoring that late goal against a quality opponent and a rival of ours just put me a new track and gave me a lot more confidence. That was the game where I saw the switch from being a freshman to being a significant player.”
Now in her senior year, which she held out such great hope for as the team galvanized her, remains in a holding pattern due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Adding to the excitement is the Dolphins’ new home field which saw its first soccer action with the boys last fall. Now the girls were ready to strut their stuff, no longer having to get on buses for their own home games at park district fields.
Young closed out last year on a 14-3-0 run, and took eventual state finalist Lyons to overtime in a disputed 2-1 loss that hinged on a Young player disqualified by a late red card.
Now Lisanti is frozen in place, still determined and optimistic something is going to work out in her favor. The two weeks the team had to practice before classes at school were cancelled and the players put in quarantine was a revealing moment.
“From the very beginning, it was devastating for me and the whole team,” she said. “You don’t want to take it too personally. With all the work we have put in, the early morning workouts, and knowing that might be in jeopardy, is very tough.
“Ross has tried to keep us all positive, and put aside our emotions and work on our games individually and staying sharp and in shape. It has put on an emotional and physical toll. As the captain, I have taken the job to heart. It has been really hard; I am not going to lie.”
For now, Lisanti sticks to hope with the belief the social distancing and other actions mandated by the government and state health officials is sufficient to eventually starve out the pandemic.
The focus is naturally on what this year’s iteration is capable of doing. That excitement pushes through the hard moments brought about the severe disruption and social dislocation.
“The end of the season run we had last year is going to be really important for us this year, just mentally it helps us know we can take on any team,” Lisanti said.
By her own admission, Lisanti said, the traditional structural obstacles that have prevented even the best city teams from competing at a high state level haunted the team.
“In previous years we had this mentality we could not take on any of these higher-level teams,” Lisanti said. “The state run we had helped us believe in ourselves. We are trying to take it as a challenge.”
The state tournament push was also grounded in a kind of a weird freedom the team felt after its lopsided loss to rival Lane in the city championship at UIC.
“The reason we did well last year was because we didn’t have such a high level of stress,” Lisanti said. “We knew what we had to do to win. Winning was not the be-all and end-all.”
Now, a different kind of urgency exists, especially for the seniors like Lisanti. Young has operated clearly in the shadow of Lane—ranked no. 10 in the First 50. The Indians have won five-consecutive city titles.
During that run, Young has been vanquished by the Indians four times in the title game and another time in the semifinals.
“Going into this year, the goal is to win the city,” Lisanti said. “But now we also have other goals and aspirations. It doesn’t all come down to the city.
“For me, personally, this is my fourth year on varsity, and I can’t end high school without a city title. Those teammates I had in the last three years who didn’t get a chance to win city, they deserved it. They made me the player I am today.”
She has generated recruiting interest from all three levels, including the Naval Academy and Missouri. The pandemic has stripped down the typical recruiting apparatus.
What is clear is that Mia Lisanti is not going to be denied.
“I have had great coaches and great teammates, and that has helped me fall in love with the game even more,” she said. “Scoring goals in big games is probably the most exciting thing. It’s also awesome to make a big pass.
“When I am playing those really competitive games, it feels good to come off the field and know you did your job.”
By Patrick Z. McGavin
Growing up in Chicago, life came at Mia Lisanti at a heightened pace. She had to improvise and live spontaneously.
Sports were a natural outlet for her need for competition.
Softball or basketball, the games circled and overlapped seamlessly. The only constant was how good she was at pretty much anything she tried.
At a fortuitous moment, she discovered soccer. The other sports were interesting and exciting, but they also were somewhat in-between in levels of excitement and passion.
At the crucial part of her young life—the moment when things tend to congeal and crystallize —Lisanti saw her future mapped out in front of her.
“Soccer did not really attract me until about seventh or eighth grade,” she said. “Then I had that exponential growth, and the competitor in me just took over.
“My club coach had helped ignite this passion. Suddenly I realized that soccer was something I excelled at compared to all the other sports I had been playing.”
Now a senior at Young, Lisanti has made a deep and profound impression as one of the best players of her generation to come out of the city.
The forward is a two-time Chicagoland Soccer All-Stater. As a junior last year, Lisanti scored 20 goals and contributed 13 assists for the Dolphins (18-7-1), who reached a Class 3A sectional championship last year.
She is one of the primary reasons the Dolphins are ranked no. 11 in Chicagoland Soccer’s First 50 preseason poll. Lisanti leads a group of seven returning starters and other rotational players from last year’s group.
Her presence is the source of a wide and vast sense of optimism.
“Mia makes us go,” Young coach Ross LaBauex said. “I don’t think that is a secret. She is an exemplar of everything I want in a player.
“First is her attitude. She could think, because of what she has accomplished, that she does not have to pick up cones, or have the attitude of a Prima Donna. She has never taken that approach. I have never seen anybody work as hard as she does.”
Lisanti combines speed, a physical presence and a flair for making game-changing plays into a scintillating individual package and skill set.
She is a relentless and constant attacker player who thrives at making dizzying, pincer movements on the goal.
She has a special knack for optimizing every single scoring chance.
“I never play just one way,” Lisanti said. “I really like to see the field. Distribution is probably a big part of my game. I like to move the ball a lot, and I definitely rely on my teammates to get the ball moving.
“When you have good teammates, that makes the job easier.”
Lisanti is an emotional leader. Her drive and determination is a connective thread in fusing together the disparate parts and changing personalities of the team.
The older players have been with her from the start and follow her lead. The younger players groove on her tenacity and free spirit.
“Playing with Mia is so great,” sophomore forward Ella Koleno said. “She is a great leader—on and off the field. She has so much great insight, and we connect really well together up top in our formation.
“She is always in the perfect place.”
From the beginning of her career at Young, Lisanti revealed a determined and intense playing style that privileged the big moment.
She made her first significant reputation by scoring the winning goal in a 1-0 victory over Jones in a showdown of two of the best teams in the Premier Division.
The moment marked her own breakthrough.
“That game specifically was probably the most important game to jumpstart my high school career,” she said. “When I first got to Young, I was pretty shy and timid, and I just wanted to try and adapt to the team, be somebody who helped in.
“Scoring that late goal against a quality opponent and a rival of ours just put me a new track and gave me a lot more confidence. That was the game where I saw the switch from being a freshman to being a significant player.”
Now in her senior year, which she held out such great hope for as the team galvanized her, remains in a holding pattern due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Adding to the excitement is the Dolphins’ new home field which saw its first soccer action with the boys last fall. Now the girls were ready to strut their stuff, no longer having to get on buses for their own home games at park district fields.
Young closed out last year on a 14-3-0 run, and took eventual state finalist Lyons to overtime in a disputed 2-1 loss that hinged on a Young player disqualified by a late red card.
Now Lisanti is frozen in place, still determined and optimistic something is going to work out in her favor. The two weeks the team had to practice before classes at school were cancelled and the players put in quarantine was a revealing moment.
“From the very beginning, it was devastating for me and the whole team,” she said. “You don’t want to take it too personally. With all the work we have put in, the early morning workouts, and knowing that might be in jeopardy, is very tough.
“Ross has tried to keep us all positive, and put aside our emotions and work on our games individually and staying sharp and in shape. It has put on an emotional and physical toll. As the captain, I have taken the job to heart. It has been really hard; I am not going to lie.”
For now, Lisanti sticks to hope with the belief the social distancing and other actions mandated by the government and state health officials is sufficient to eventually starve out the pandemic.
The focus is naturally on what this year’s iteration is capable of doing. That excitement pushes through the hard moments brought about the severe disruption and social dislocation.
“The end of the season run we had last year is going to be really important for us this year, just mentally it helps us know we can take on any team,” Lisanti said.
By her own admission, Lisanti said, the traditional structural obstacles that have prevented even the best city teams from competing at a high state level haunted the team.
“In previous years we had this mentality we could not take on any of these higher-level teams,” Lisanti said. “The state run we had helped us believe in ourselves. We are trying to take it as a challenge.”
The state tournament push was also grounded in a kind of a weird freedom the team felt after its lopsided loss to rival Lane in the city championship at UIC.
“The reason we did well last year was because we didn’t have such a high level of stress,” Lisanti said. “We knew what we had to do to win. Winning was not the be-all and end-all.”
Now, a different kind of urgency exists, especially for the seniors like Lisanti. Young has operated clearly in the shadow of Lane—ranked no. 10 in the First 50. The Indians have won five-consecutive city titles.
During that run, Young has been vanquished by the Indians four times in the title game and another time in the semifinals.
“Going into this year, the goal is to win the city,” Lisanti said. “But now we also have other goals and aspirations. It doesn’t all come down to the city.
“For me, personally, this is my fourth year on varsity, and I can’t end high school without a city title. Those teammates I had in the last three years who didn’t get a chance to win city, they deserved it. They made me the player I am today.”
She has generated recruiting interest from all three levels, including the Naval Academy and Missouri. The pandemic has stripped down the typical recruiting apparatus.
What is clear is that Mia Lisanti is not going to be denied.
“I have had great coaches and great teammates, and that has helped me fall in love with the game even more,” she said. “Scoring goals in big games is probably the most exciting thing. It’s also awesome to make a big pass.
“When I am playing those really competitive games, it feels good to come off the field and know you did your job.”