Bartlett has big night in West Chicago
Hawks blank Wildcats 5-0, Stark scores on 16th birthday
By Chris Walker
WEST CHICAGO -- Bartlett only had a few subs available for Wednesday’s Upstate Eight Conference game at West Chicago.
While that could’ve been the Achilles heel for the Hawks, it may have helped them. Those on the field were doing so many great things that they probably didn’t want subs.
Bartlett controlled the match from start to finish, overpowering a young West Chicago team 5-0.
“We’re dealing with a heck of a lot of injuries right now, and I think we only had four subs available today,” Hawks coach Vince Revak said. “We’re asking a lot from the girls, and everything we’ve asked of them they’ve stepped up every single time.”
Junior Brooke Baumann, who scored both of Bartlett’s goals in the first half, was named Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match. Lizzie Dzielski, Viviana Alba and birthday girl Laney Stark added goals in the second half. Hailey Morhardt delivered the ball with a fine touch all night long – she assisted on Baumann’s first goal and the final two from Alba and Stark.
“The offensive production was there; we had some real nice combination play,” Revak said. “A lot of these girls played excellent games today. I couldn’t be happier with the result.
“We were a little tentative at times trying to feel out the opponent in the first half, but then in the second half we just really took off.”
Baumann got the Hawks off and running when she scored 18 minutes into the action on a diagonal through-ball.
“It was a nice ball right over the top,” she said “I ran onto it, and it hit the keeper once, but I kept running and ran straight through to the goal.”
West Chicago (0-4-2, 0-2-1) was doing far more chasing than attacking, but hung close with the Hawks before Baumann struck again with just 2:34 remaining before halftime.
“They were more aggressive than we were and capitalized on the mistakes we made,” West Chicago coach J. Cesar Gomez said. “I think we’re like a blinker (light) right now. We’re on/off, and it’s hard for the kids. They look at Bartlett, and they go ‘Woah, they’re big.’ They intimidated us a little bit.”
Baumann, who had six goals a season ago, buried her second goal of the night from near the top of the box.
“We struggled a little bit at the beginning (of the season), but I think we’re getting it now,” she said. “I think it took a little of getting back into it during the season. But now that we are here I think we’re connecting really well up-top, especially from the defense going forward. We’re working really well together. It’s the defense and in the middle, and our combining has just gotten a lot better.”
It’s certainly much more enjoyable to be executing at this level and even better when you’re doing it with familiar teammates who include your younger sister, sophomore defender Breanna Baumann.
“It’s nice to have a lot of quality time together,” Breanna Baumann said. “We get along for the most part, which is good. We’re pretty close.”
Bartlett ensured West Chicago wouldn’t make this contest a close one by scoring twice in about a minute-span midway through the second half to break the game open.
“We’ve got pretty good forwards and pretty good mids who aren’t afraid of taking shots, obviously,” Brooke Baumann said. “I think the longer we work together and the more training we do and combining we do, we’re going to get more chances and more goals.”
Dzielski secured possession from Madison Neer amongst a scrum in front of the net with 18:37 left and put the Hawks ahead 3-0. Then, just 52 seconds later, Viviana Alba pounced on an opportunity from Morhardt to make it 4-0.
“We lost Serena (Salvato) who had a lot of our goals last year (and graduated), but we have Brooke (Baumann) and Laney (Stark) and Viviana (Alba) and even Sabrina (Fowler) scoring goals for us now,” Revak said. “We’re now starting to get back into playing like a team, and that’s what we’ve been waiting for.”
Previous experience in nasty conditions, on an unfamiliar artificial surface and against stout competition recently in the Augsburg-Drach Invitational in St. Charles was an important experience for the Hawks.
“Tough competition, awful weather and we don’t have a turf field to necessarily practice on,” Revak said. “Often times the game speeds up. The field is so big compared to what we’re used to in a sense. It’s growing pains at the beginning of the season. We knew it would just be a matter of time before a lot of these returners found their feet.”
Frustrations are now being taken out on opponents. The Hawks are on a two-game conference win streak after matches with Streamwood and West Chicago.
“We had some girls not able to get on the scoresheet a couple times, and they were getting really frustrated,” Revak said. “So now the past few games those girls are burying balls and getting assists. The kids are stepping up that we knew could do it.”
It may be some time before West Chicago starts to see success. Two-of- three seniors available for this game, and none of them started. High school soccer is new for a lot of the Wildcats. Freshmen Brianna Carrasco, Elina Velasco and Arizbeth Zuniga started alongside sophomores Leslie Garnica, Natalie Fernandez and goalkeeper Arianna Hernandez.
“We’re trying to do too much sometimes, and we’re moving the ball in a hurry,” Gomez said. “We need to move it quicker, but not necessarily in a hurry. Those things are hard, and that comes with experience.”
Keeping the faith may not be a challenge for a coach that’s been around a long, long time. Gomez even coached assistant coach Jose Villa who was at the helm for the boys state title in 2019. The big challenge is being able to convince a young team that they are progressing even if they aren’t scoring goals and winning games.
“We made two mistakes in the first half, and they scored on both of them,” Gomez said. “But in the second half we challenged (our girls) a little bit to go out and play. We told them these kids are just like you so let’s put some passes together. I thought we did that for 20 minutes, and our game was a little different.”
Gomez sees positives, but he isn’t so sure his young teens see what he sees.
“We’re trying to encourage them that there are possibilities that you see as a coach,” he said. “It’s just hard to convince 14- and 15-year-old girls that there’s potential.”
As big of a challenge as soccer is physically, the mental aspect really comes into play as younger players try to develop in the midst of a tough varsity schedule. It may not be easy for the Wildcats but they’re also just getting started with eight underclassmen and seven juniors on the roster. Even if they don’t have much success this year, the gains they make could be gigantic ones.
“It’ll be hard for the coaches to motivate for tomorrow’s practice, but we’ll find a way to do it,” Gomez said. “We’re seeing the kids stepping up and the freshmen are playing well. Our goalkeeper (Hernandez) made a lot of good saves today. We’re hoping to find a better formula to keep their heads up, because we haven’t won a game yet and only scored two goals on the whole season. It’s hard to say we’re playing well, and the result doesn’t show that.”
Bartlett’s Stark will be showing off her driver’s license Thursday and perhaps eating leftover birthday cake, although from the sound of her hunger, that’s unlikely.
The Bartlett sophomore scored just as the buzzer sounded. It should afford her with a lasting memory years from now when she can look back on her soccer playing days and her 16th-birthday goal.
“Birthday vibes,” she said. “It was a birthday goal.”
The ball had gone out of bounds with about 30 seconds remaining so the Hawks barely were able to take the corner kick. Morhardt earned a hat-trick of assists to help wish her teammate a happy birthday.
“The ball was way out of bounds so I thought we probably wouldn’t get the corner off,” Stark said. “One of the girls went over and just settled it. I just yelled for the ball and got in the middle and kicked it.”
Stark said she couldn’t remember what she did on her birthday a year ago. While she played on varsity as a freshman last season, games didn’t begin until late in April so it most certainly was her first high school birthday goal. Her next immediate goals now are to eat cake and drive.
“I won’t have to ask anyone for a ride anymore,” she said. “Now I’m going to have my birthday dinner. I’m going to have cake, just cake. Probably vanilla with chocolate icing. You’ve got to mix it up a little.”
It looks like the Hawks are mixing things up for opponents with their multiple-scoring threats, which isn’t a good sign for teams chasing the reigning conference champs.
Starting lineups
Bartlett
GK: Maggie Yurkovich
D: Sabrina Fowler
D: Ariss Kroeger
D: Macy Medendorp
D: Madison Neer
MF: Lizzie Dzielski
MF: Brooke Baumann
MF: Hailey Morhardt
MF: Laney Stark
F: Viviana Alba
F: Gianna Imperatrice
West Chicago
GK: Arianna Hernandez
D: Nicole Murphy
D: Lizbeth Orozco
MF: Leslie Garnica
MF: Brianna Carrasco
MF: Vanessa Romero
MF: Melissa Pani
MF: Natalie Fernandez
MF: Elina Velasco
F: Arizbeth Zuniga
F: Jenna Zeitoun
Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match: Brooke Baumann, jr., MF, Bartlett
Scoring summary
First half
Bartlett: Brooke Baumann (Hailey Morhardt), 18th minute
Bartlett: Brooke Baumann (unassisted), 37th minute
Second half
Bartlett: Lizzie Dzielski (Madison Neer), 61st minute
Bartlett: Viviana Alba (Hailey Morhardt), 62nd minute
Bartlett: Laney Stark, (Hailey Morhardt), 80th minute
Hawks blank Wildcats 5-0, Stark scores on 16th birthday
By Chris Walker
WEST CHICAGO -- Bartlett only had a few subs available for Wednesday’s Upstate Eight Conference game at West Chicago.
While that could’ve been the Achilles heel for the Hawks, it may have helped them. Those on the field were doing so many great things that they probably didn’t want subs.
Bartlett controlled the match from start to finish, overpowering a young West Chicago team 5-0.
“We’re dealing with a heck of a lot of injuries right now, and I think we only had four subs available today,” Hawks coach Vince Revak said. “We’re asking a lot from the girls, and everything we’ve asked of them they’ve stepped up every single time.”
Junior Brooke Baumann, who scored both of Bartlett’s goals in the first half, was named Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match. Lizzie Dzielski, Viviana Alba and birthday girl Laney Stark added goals in the second half. Hailey Morhardt delivered the ball with a fine touch all night long – she assisted on Baumann’s first goal and the final two from Alba and Stark.
“The offensive production was there; we had some real nice combination play,” Revak said. “A lot of these girls played excellent games today. I couldn’t be happier with the result.
“We were a little tentative at times trying to feel out the opponent in the first half, but then in the second half we just really took off.”
Baumann got the Hawks off and running when she scored 18 minutes into the action on a diagonal through-ball.
“It was a nice ball right over the top,” she said “I ran onto it, and it hit the keeper once, but I kept running and ran straight through to the goal.”
West Chicago (0-4-2, 0-2-1) was doing far more chasing than attacking, but hung close with the Hawks before Baumann struck again with just 2:34 remaining before halftime.
“They were more aggressive than we were and capitalized on the mistakes we made,” West Chicago coach J. Cesar Gomez said. “I think we’re like a blinker (light) right now. We’re on/off, and it’s hard for the kids. They look at Bartlett, and they go ‘Woah, they’re big.’ They intimidated us a little bit.”
Baumann, who had six goals a season ago, buried her second goal of the night from near the top of the box.
“We struggled a little bit at the beginning (of the season), but I think we’re getting it now,” she said. “I think it took a little of getting back into it during the season. But now that we are here I think we’re connecting really well up-top, especially from the defense going forward. We’re working really well together. It’s the defense and in the middle, and our combining has just gotten a lot better.”
It’s certainly much more enjoyable to be executing at this level and even better when you’re doing it with familiar teammates who include your younger sister, sophomore defender Breanna Baumann.
“It’s nice to have a lot of quality time together,” Breanna Baumann said. “We get along for the most part, which is good. We’re pretty close.”
Bartlett ensured West Chicago wouldn’t make this contest a close one by scoring twice in about a minute-span midway through the second half to break the game open.
“We’ve got pretty good forwards and pretty good mids who aren’t afraid of taking shots, obviously,” Brooke Baumann said. “I think the longer we work together and the more training we do and combining we do, we’re going to get more chances and more goals.”
Dzielski secured possession from Madison Neer amongst a scrum in front of the net with 18:37 left and put the Hawks ahead 3-0. Then, just 52 seconds later, Viviana Alba pounced on an opportunity from Morhardt to make it 4-0.
“We lost Serena (Salvato) who had a lot of our goals last year (and graduated), but we have Brooke (Baumann) and Laney (Stark) and Viviana (Alba) and even Sabrina (Fowler) scoring goals for us now,” Revak said. “We’re now starting to get back into playing like a team, and that’s what we’ve been waiting for.”
Previous experience in nasty conditions, on an unfamiliar artificial surface and against stout competition recently in the Augsburg-Drach Invitational in St. Charles was an important experience for the Hawks.
“Tough competition, awful weather and we don’t have a turf field to necessarily practice on,” Revak said. “Often times the game speeds up. The field is so big compared to what we’re used to in a sense. It’s growing pains at the beginning of the season. We knew it would just be a matter of time before a lot of these returners found their feet.”
Frustrations are now being taken out on opponents. The Hawks are on a two-game conference win streak after matches with Streamwood and West Chicago.
“We had some girls not able to get on the scoresheet a couple times, and they were getting really frustrated,” Revak said. “So now the past few games those girls are burying balls and getting assists. The kids are stepping up that we knew could do it.”
It may be some time before West Chicago starts to see success. Two-of- three seniors available for this game, and none of them started. High school soccer is new for a lot of the Wildcats. Freshmen Brianna Carrasco, Elina Velasco and Arizbeth Zuniga started alongside sophomores Leslie Garnica, Natalie Fernandez and goalkeeper Arianna Hernandez.
“We’re trying to do too much sometimes, and we’re moving the ball in a hurry,” Gomez said. “We need to move it quicker, but not necessarily in a hurry. Those things are hard, and that comes with experience.”
Keeping the faith may not be a challenge for a coach that’s been around a long, long time. Gomez even coached assistant coach Jose Villa who was at the helm for the boys state title in 2019. The big challenge is being able to convince a young team that they are progressing even if they aren’t scoring goals and winning games.
“We made two mistakes in the first half, and they scored on both of them,” Gomez said. “But in the second half we challenged (our girls) a little bit to go out and play. We told them these kids are just like you so let’s put some passes together. I thought we did that for 20 minutes, and our game was a little different.”
Gomez sees positives, but he isn’t so sure his young teens see what he sees.
“We’re trying to encourage them that there are possibilities that you see as a coach,” he said. “It’s just hard to convince 14- and 15-year-old girls that there’s potential.”
As big of a challenge as soccer is physically, the mental aspect really comes into play as younger players try to develop in the midst of a tough varsity schedule. It may not be easy for the Wildcats but they’re also just getting started with eight underclassmen and seven juniors on the roster. Even if they don’t have much success this year, the gains they make could be gigantic ones.
“It’ll be hard for the coaches to motivate for tomorrow’s practice, but we’ll find a way to do it,” Gomez said. “We’re seeing the kids stepping up and the freshmen are playing well. Our goalkeeper (Hernandez) made a lot of good saves today. We’re hoping to find a better formula to keep their heads up, because we haven’t won a game yet and only scored two goals on the whole season. It’s hard to say we’re playing well, and the result doesn’t show that.”
Bartlett’s Stark will be showing off her driver’s license Thursday and perhaps eating leftover birthday cake, although from the sound of her hunger, that’s unlikely.
The Bartlett sophomore scored just as the buzzer sounded. It should afford her with a lasting memory years from now when she can look back on her soccer playing days and her 16th-birthday goal.
“Birthday vibes,” she said. “It was a birthday goal.”
The ball had gone out of bounds with about 30 seconds remaining so the Hawks barely were able to take the corner kick. Morhardt earned a hat-trick of assists to help wish her teammate a happy birthday.
“The ball was way out of bounds so I thought we probably wouldn’t get the corner off,” Stark said. “One of the girls went over and just settled it. I just yelled for the ball and got in the middle and kicked it.”
Stark said she couldn’t remember what she did on her birthday a year ago. While she played on varsity as a freshman last season, games didn’t begin until late in April so it most certainly was her first high school birthday goal. Her next immediate goals now are to eat cake and drive.
“I won’t have to ask anyone for a ride anymore,” she said. “Now I’m going to have my birthday dinner. I’m going to have cake, just cake. Probably vanilla with chocolate icing. You’ve got to mix it up a little.”
It looks like the Hawks are mixing things up for opponents with their multiple-scoring threats, which isn’t a good sign for teams chasing the reigning conference champs.
Starting lineups
Bartlett
GK: Maggie Yurkovich
D: Sabrina Fowler
D: Ariss Kroeger
D: Macy Medendorp
D: Madison Neer
MF: Lizzie Dzielski
MF: Brooke Baumann
MF: Hailey Morhardt
MF: Laney Stark
F: Viviana Alba
F: Gianna Imperatrice
West Chicago
GK: Arianna Hernandez
D: Nicole Murphy
D: Lizbeth Orozco
MF: Leslie Garnica
MF: Brianna Carrasco
MF: Vanessa Romero
MF: Melissa Pani
MF: Natalie Fernandez
MF: Elina Velasco
F: Arizbeth Zuniga
F: Jenna Zeitoun
Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match: Brooke Baumann, jr., MF, Bartlett
Scoring summary
First half
Bartlett: Brooke Baumann (Hailey Morhardt), 18th minute
Bartlett: Brooke Baumann (unassisted), 37th minute
Second half
Bartlett: Lizzie Dzielski (Madison Neer), 61st minute
Bartlett: Viviana Alba (Hailey Morhardt), 62nd minute
Bartlett: Laney Stark, (Hailey Morhardt), 80th minute