North Stars sparkle, top
Batavia for 8th-straight win
North Stars take important Upstate 8 Conference match
By Derek Wolff
GENEVA -- Fewer days off between games. Larger than normal crowds. Neutral host sites.
All of these are factors during the postseason, and all were present Tuesday night as no. 7 St. Charles North (13-2-1, 5-0-0) downed 14th-ranked Batavia (12-3-3, 5-2-0) 3-0 in Game 1 of the Tri-Cities Night from Geneva High School.
It felt like a playoff game and was played close for the majority of the evening. Then a pair of defensive miscues in the final 15 minutes helped St. Charles North solidify the win.
The North Stars made it eight wins in a row with the victory after being crowned champions at the Tournament of Champions in Iowa over the weekend.
“Batavia’s a great team,” said North coach Ruth Vostal. “I know they’ve had a great season. I didn’t think today was our ... we had a good effort but didn’t perform the best that we can. But I thought the three goals that we scored were incredible goals, if you look at the assists and the quality of the finish. I was pleased with that.
“Our effort was good, we’re coming off the three-game weekend plus prom so I knew we might be a little fatigued, and we tried to battle it as best as we could. So I was pleased with the three goals.”
Both sides traded chances early before Batavia forward Tori Renfus was taken down inside the box in the 12th minute.
It could have been called a penalty but play continued, with the Bulldogs earning a corner kick that they couldn’t convert.
North had a flurry of opportunities before senior midfielder Lizzie Parrilli found Katy Kusswurm in stride in the 37th minute.
Kusswurm took a ball on the right side of the 18 and drove around a pulled-out-of-position Jenny Scara. The Batavia goalkeeper was forced to watch Kusswurm’s ball break the deadlock.
Batavia controlled the pace of play when the second half began, earning a corner four minutes in, but it yielded nothing.
North goalkeeper Leanne Stahulak was tested in the 44th and 55th minutes by shots from Batavia’s Alexis Bryl and Megan McEachern but held the line.
With 15 minutes left to play, the North Stars found the elusive goal to double their lead off a precision passing sequence between Gia Wahlberg and Chicagoland Soccer’s MVP of the Match Madison Kaufmann, who converted with a right-footed strike.
“I just saw Gia sprinting down, and my goal as an outside mid is to always be there for those rebounds or crosses so I used my speed to get past her (a defenseman) and
Gia had a great cross,” Kaufmann said. “The goalie came out, and I was just there to finish it.”
Three minutes later, Kaufmann paced another shot on net. Scarra dove to her left and held it momentarily, but her momentum when she hit the ground propelled the ball loose.
Wahlberg swept it to clean it up and give Geneva the 3-0 lead on her team-leading 16th goal of the season.
Batavia finished a largely successful conference schedule at 5-2-0, with losses to St. Charles East, and now North.
Head coach Mark Gianfrancesco liked the way his team played for the majority of Tuesday’s contest but said the defensive mistakes were costly.
“We have to learn to limit those mistakes against quality teams since quality teams will take advantage of those, and manage the game as we’re going,” Gianfrancesco said. “While the scoreboard read 3-0 at the end of the day, it was frustrating knowing that wasn’t an accurate representation of how close the majority of the game was.
“I thought we played with some great confidence,” Gianfrancesco said. “We took their pressure right away; they came out hyped up like we expected for the first 10 minutes, they were kind of on us. We kept our composure and were focused, working things out from the back, and I thought that was pretty good. We linked a lot of passes together. A lot of stuff was won in the midfield but three breakdowns, two in particular, of poor decision making and they capitalized. Good teams are going to do that.”
Batavia also competed in the Tournament of Champions over the weekend, winning two of its three games and finishing third.
Senior defender and captain Ali Grimm said the team will learn from the mistakes made in what felt like a playoff atmosphere, knowing there will be less opportunities to do so in a few weeks when the postseason begins.
“We knew North was going to be great,” Grimm said. “We really wanted this win. However, I’m not ashamed; I think we played amazing today. We hung with them, and I think it was very evenly matched. We hung with them and while we made mistakes I think that’s going to help us pull through in the postseason. We can’t let those little things get to us because it’s going to be cutthroat then.”
With a few more matches to play between now and then, the Bulldogs will rely on their leadership and experience to piece things back together.
“It’s a terrible feeling, it’s the worst, very frustrating,” Grimm said on losing to North and East, both of whom are seeded higher than Batavia in the sectional. “We don’t want that feeling again so we just have to keep up the communication. A lot of times when that happens, teams heads go down but our team is very good at picking it back up and moving forward from it. Picking our heads back up is the key and we’re going to have to do that in the postseason as well.”
With North finding its groove late in the season, they looked anything but tired after the long weekend.
Kusswurm said the team took ice baths on Monday to get reinvigorated, but a level of expected responsibility and trust has certainly helped on the current win streak.
“We take our time to recover and really use our time in practice wisely to work on what we need to work on,” Kusswurm said. “We just work as a team and have each others backs. We hold each other responsible for our mistakes and push each other to do better.”
Vostal credited the PepsiCo Showdown tournament with getting North geared up for the postseason attitude, but she thinks they still have plenty of work to do.
“It’s great, I think we’re in a really good place,” Vostal said. “I still don’t think we’ve peaked, I think we’re starting to hit our stride and we’re in a good spot.
The Pepsi tournament, I think it was game-practice, game-practice for a couple weeks. That led into Iowa which was three games in two games, and they rushed back for prom the same night.
"This week I knew was going to be challenging but coming out here sets the tone and then we’ll see Streamwood before Saturday. There’s no break.”
The North Stars will finish conference play this week with Streamwood on Thursday before the highly-anticipated rivalry finale against no. 4 St. Charles East (17-1-0, 6-0-0) Saturday.
Starting lineups
St. Charles North
GK Leanne Stahulak
D Claire Barresi
D Lauren Neslund
D Lauren Willis
D Addy Adams
M Hailey Rydberg
M Amanda Czerniak
M Morgan Rerko
M Lizzie Parrilli
F Gia Wahlberg
F Hanna Durocher
Batavia
GK Jenny Scara
D Rachel Reinecke
D Alison Grimm
D Kayla Stolfa
M Alexis Bryl
M Olivia Callipari
M Karina Rosales
F Keegan Maris
F Megan McEachern
F Lexi Slome
F Mackenzie Foster
MVP of the Match: Madison Kaufmann, MF, St. Charles North
Batavia for 8th-straight win
North Stars take important Upstate 8 Conference match
By Derek Wolff
GENEVA -- Fewer days off between games. Larger than normal crowds. Neutral host sites.
All of these are factors during the postseason, and all were present Tuesday night as no. 7 St. Charles North (13-2-1, 5-0-0) downed 14th-ranked Batavia (12-3-3, 5-2-0) 3-0 in Game 1 of the Tri-Cities Night from Geneva High School.
It felt like a playoff game and was played close for the majority of the evening. Then a pair of defensive miscues in the final 15 minutes helped St. Charles North solidify the win.
The North Stars made it eight wins in a row with the victory after being crowned champions at the Tournament of Champions in Iowa over the weekend.
“Batavia’s a great team,” said North coach Ruth Vostal. “I know they’ve had a great season. I didn’t think today was our ... we had a good effort but didn’t perform the best that we can. But I thought the three goals that we scored were incredible goals, if you look at the assists and the quality of the finish. I was pleased with that.
“Our effort was good, we’re coming off the three-game weekend plus prom so I knew we might be a little fatigued, and we tried to battle it as best as we could. So I was pleased with the three goals.”
Both sides traded chances early before Batavia forward Tori Renfus was taken down inside the box in the 12th minute.
It could have been called a penalty but play continued, with the Bulldogs earning a corner kick that they couldn’t convert.
North had a flurry of opportunities before senior midfielder Lizzie Parrilli found Katy Kusswurm in stride in the 37th minute.
Kusswurm took a ball on the right side of the 18 and drove around a pulled-out-of-position Jenny Scara. The Batavia goalkeeper was forced to watch Kusswurm’s ball break the deadlock.
Batavia controlled the pace of play when the second half began, earning a corner four minutes in, but it yielded nothing.
North goalkeeper Leanne Stahulak was tested in the 44th and 55th minutes by shots from Batavia’s Alexis Bryl and Megan McEachern but held the line.
With 15 minutes left to play, the North Stars found the elusive goal to double their lead off a precision passing sequence between Gia Wahlberg and Chicagoland Soccer’s MVP of the Match Madison Kaufmann, who converted with a right-footed strike.
“I just saw Gia sprinting down, and my goal as an outside mid is to always be there for those rebounds or crosses so I used my speed to get past her (a defenseman) and
Gia had a great cross,” Kaufmann said. “The goalie came out, and I was just there to finish it.”
Three minutes later, Kaufmann paced another shot on net. Scarra dove to her left and held it momentarily, but her momentum when she hit the ground propelled the ball loose.
Wahlberg swept it to clean it up and give Geneva the 3-0 lead on her team-leading 16th goal of the season.
Batavia finished a largely successful conference schedule at 5-2-0, with losses to St. Charles East, and now North.
Head coach Mark Gianfrancesco liked the way his team played for the majority of Tuesday’s contest but said the defensive mistakes were costly.
“We have to learn to limit those mistakes against quality teams since quality teams will take advantage of those, and manage the game as we’re going,” Gianfrancesco said. “While the scoreboard read 3-0 at the end of the day, it was frustrating knowing that wasn’t an accurate representation of how close the majority of the game was.
“I thought we played with some great confidence,” Gianfrancesco said. “We took their pressure right away; they came out hyped up like we expected for the first 10 minutes, they were kind of on us. We kept our composure and were focused, working things out from the back, and I thought that was pretty good. We linked a lot of passes together. A lot of stuff was won in the midfield but three breakdowns, two in particular, of poor decision making and they capitalized. Good teams are going to do that.”
Batavia also competed in the Tournament of Champions over the weekend, winning two of its three games and finishing third.
Senior defender and captain Ali Grimm said the team will learn from the mistakes made in what felt like a playoff atmosphere, knowing there will be less opportunities to do so in a few weeks when the postseason begins.
“We knew North was going to be great,” Grimm said. “We really wanted this win. However, I’m not ashamed; I think we played amazing today. We hung with them, and I think it was very evenly matched. We hung with them and while we made mistakes I think that’s going to help us pull through in the postseason. We can’t let those little things get to us because it’s going to be cutthroat then.”
With a few more matches to play between now and then, the Bulldogs will rely on their leadership and experience to piece things back together.
“It’s a terrible feeling, it’s the worst, very frustrating,” Grimm said on losing to North and East, both of whom are seeded higher than Batavia in the sectional. “We don’t want that feeling again so we just have to keep up the communication. A lot of times when that happens, teams heads go down but our team is very good at picking it back up and moving forward from it. Picking our heads back up is the key and we’re going to have to do that in the postseason as well.”
With North finding its groove late in the season, they looked anything but tired after the long weekend.
Kusswurm said the team took ice baths on Monday to get reinvigorated, but a level of expected responsibility and trust has certainly helped on the current win streak.
“We take our time to recover and really use our time in practice wisely to work on what we need to work on,” Kusswurm said. “We just work as a team and have each others backs. We hold each other responsible for our mistakes and push each other to do better.”
Vostal credited the PepsiCo Showdown tournament with getting North geared up for the postseason attitude, but she thinks they still have plenty of work to do.
“It’s great, I think we’re in a really good place,” Vostal said. “I still don’t think we’ve peaked, I think we’re starting to hit our stride and we’re in a good spot.
The Pepsi tournament, I think it was game-practice, game-practice for a couple weeks. That led into Iowa which was three games in two games, and they rushed back for prom the same night.
"This week I knew was going to be challenging but coming out here sets the tone and then we’ll see Streamwood before Saturday. There’s no break.”
The North Stars will finish conference play this week with Streamwood on Thursday before the highly-anticipated rivalry finale against no. 4 St. Charles East (17-1-0, 6-0-0) Saturday.
Starting lineups
St. Charles North
GK Leanne Stahulak
D Claire Barresi
D Lauren Neslund
D Lauren Willis
D Addy Adams
M Hailey Rydberg
M Amanda Czerniak
M Morgan Rerko
M Lizzie Parrilli
F Gia Wahlberg
F Hanna Durocher
Batavia
GK Jenny Scara
D Rachel Reinecke
D Alison Grimm
D Kayla Stolfa
M Alexis Bryl
M Olivia Callipari
M Karina Rosales
F Keegan Maris
F Megan McEachern
F Lexi Slome
F Mackenzie Foster
MVP of the Match: Madison Kaufmann, MF, St. Charles North