Team preview: Wheaton Warrenville South
By Chris Walker
When Wheaton Warrenville South held its 2019 commencement ceremony late last May, it included 11 Tigers players who had 39 seasons of varsity playing experience between them.
Today the Tigers don’t know which players will slot in to fill the void left by graduation. Nor do they know if they’ll even have a chance to play games this season, let alone even practice again live in-person with each other after the coronavirus halted the season before it barely got started.
It’s left longtime coach Guy Callipari wondering what kind of team he’s going to have for a season he doesn’t know will happen. And if that was hard enough to understand, now you know how difficult it is for Callipari to figure this all out.
“On paper you have an idea of what you think will work as a system while keeping in mind their particular roles, accenting their positives and negating what might be some of our weaknesses,” Callipari said. “We’re hoping to find some continuity and rhythm, and now that’ll have to come a little bit later.
“One of the great nuances of soccer, of sports in general, is every season you’re given another hand, and not only you, but everybody else at the table. You can say what you think is going to happen, but you don’t really know until you start laying down your hand.”
Callipari has seen a little of just about everything in his 24 seasons in coaching the girls as well as his nearly 30 years of coaching the boys in the fall. While most of his springs have ended with a winning a record and the Tigers have enjoyed many regional titles, a couple sectional championships and a pair of state appearances, he’s never found himself in pause mode in a season for any particular reason, let alone because of a worldwide pandemic.
This season he’s basically working with a completely new team.
“To be fair I haven’t seen them play, and we had six girls who played for four years for us and another five girls who played for three years so we had been pretty comfortable knowing the last few years what we were,” Callipari said. “There had been no room at the top for any movement, and that’s why this year has been a challenge to try to figure it out.”
It remains unknown what area will be most difficult for the Tigers to address this season with so little time afforded the team thus far due to the COVID-19 shutdown. First you must consider that they lost J.J. Aalbue, the DuKane Conference Player of the Year and a Chicagoland All-State selection who went on to NCCAA Player of the Year honors as a freshman at Grace College. Next come fellow CS All-Staters and all-conference players Paige Miller and Maria Dohse, as well as four-year goalkeeper Abbie Brennan, who is fourth all-time in saves and fifth all-time in shutouts in school history. Those are huge losses that don’t take into account seven other key players who played a ton of minutes the past three or four years.
“We did lose a lot of seniors, and we’ve added more than half of the team, so they’re new to the varsity level and it’s going to be different,” Tigers senior Cami Terkildsen said.
“We had a full week of practice before school got suspended so we knew it was going to be a big adjustment with a lot of new people, but I think with a lot of practice we were looking forward to that first game to come together (the cancelled home-, season-opener versus Hinsdale Central on March 23).”
As Callipari explained, he has primarily a new deck of cards 0(players) to work with. While last year’s contributors will undoubtedly be missed, now’s the time for plenty of other talented athletes to step up and make the most of the opportunity afforded them.
“We got 18 new girls on the team so it’s a huge change from last year, but in the brief time we got to work on training, and we were working a lot on shots and stuff. We were already making a lot of progress,” Tigers senior defender Sara Berardi said. “We were just getting used to each other, because so many of us are new together, but I think we showed potential.”
Berardi acknowledged that last year was a good year, but not necessarily a great one in her eyes in that the Tigers still fell short of goals, despite winning 14 games and suffering a two-game losing streak at worst.
“We had D1 (Division I) athletes and other kids who could’ve gone D1, and I thought we were going to be a lot better than we were,” she said.
“With all those starters graduating I was a bit surprised during the first couple of practices. I think the starting lineup was still going to be a surprise, but we were already showing some good signs.”
Berardi and her senior counterparts, Abby Becker and Sam Buol, return on the defensive end, which is where the Tigers return their most experience. Tirkildsen, junior Becca Hauenstein and sophomore Ellie Farrel return to the midfield and will play bigger roles this spring. Senior Abby Dannegger and junior Emma Snowman are two key newcomers with solid backgrounds who Callipari is also counting on to step in immediately and make an impact.
“It’s really difficult to be effective when you really don’t know what you have and what you’re capable of doing,” Callipari said. “You hope they’re trying to be the best that they can and you hope that can be good enough, but there is a lot of uncertainties.”
An official IHSA season is still up in the air, but Callipari will ensure his team has some sort of closure regardless of what happens with the coronavirus. For the time being, the Tigers are sticking with the structure of online practices, and technology is proving to be a godsend.
“We’ve stayed with the structure of the day of going to train between 3 and 4:15 p.m. daily,” he said. “We continue to do that and that’s a workout for the entire program of 35-40 (kids) everyday via Zoom. I lead the exercises, muscles, endurance, strength. We might add some cardio and skill work. So that’s the physical part, and we’re trying to include the tactical part. (Computer program) LAB 360 affords me to do something with each (player) on an independent module.”
Callipari is able to have his kids watch a seven-minute lesson and take a quiz. Then he can use the results to determine what’s been learned and by whom, as well as who needs additional instruction before the next module is shared.
“We want them to learn our system so we did some independent learning and team learning as well,” he said. “We’re trying to keep it fun and challenge the girls -- the toilet paper challenge (online), and we’re going to start highlighting the seniors via video. One thing we can’t do is fundraising and the charitable stuff. The Little Sisters things we can do.”
And it all ties back into the main story. However with Callipari in charge, there will be some form of soccer. Whether or not it’s closer to a normal season or a special one-game-only-type of year, there will be soccer.
“We had a meeting with the three captains and we’re looking at three scenarios of how this could end up,” he said. “We want to have closure.”
Callipari said regardless if the season resumes on May 1 or the final word arrives stating that the season is officially canceled, the Tigers will have some sort of finish to their respective high school soccer seasons.
“If we get back May 1 you could have closure with the tournament and conference and then three or four games including Senior Night,” he said. “Again, the fact that you look around and see it’s not going to happen in other scarier states, you don’t know if it’s going to happen here. It seems most are onboard for a conference tournament at the end where you can introduce all the seniors and have some closure, whatever that might be.”
Callipari ensures at least one game will be played among the program in some capacity to give the season closure and the seniors one lasting fond memory.
“Let’s say any of those (other options/ideas) fall apart, we’ll have a discussion with them about doing something in-house,” he said. “We can bring back last year’s team, and they can suit up, or their little sisters. We can do some form of awards or whatever that looks like and normalize it the best we can. It puts structure to something as a new normal.”
Anything would seem normal after being asked to stay inside 24/7 for weeks and cabin fever affecting everyone who is following the stay-in-place order.
“I think what I’m missing most is being with my teammates and my coaches every day,” Tirkildsen said. “All the stuff I love about soccer wouldn’t be the same if not for my teammates.
“The past three years of high school have been so much fun because of the soccer season. I have so many friends and with a new team this year I was so looking forward to being around them. It’s my one last time for memories and jokes and things other than sports that we relate to. It’s really fun everyday with the team bonding. I’m missing it.”
Berardi saw her brother Anthony, a two-time all-conference soccer player, enjoy his senior year at Wheaton Warrenville South in 2015. Having a sibling who already had that memorable, final season, Berardi recognizes what she’s missing, but knows there’s nothing she can do. She’s going to stay as positive as she can.
“I’m trying to stay as active as I can and trying to stay optimistic,” Berardi said. “But it’s hard to be optimistic when they keep pushing back the deadline for social distance.”
2020 Wheaton Warrenville South Tigers
Manager: Guy Callipari (24th year, 375-137-53)
2019 Record: 14-5-2 (3-3-1)
Graduation losses: J.J. Aalbue, Allie Anderson, Abbie Brennan, Evelyn Demsher, Maria Dohse, Ellery Fahey, Molly Fank, Katie Johnston, Paige Miller, Maddie Monaco, Audrey Siebert
Top returning players: seniors, Abby Becker (D), Sara Berardi (D), Sam Buol (D), Cam Tirkildsen (MF); junior, Becca Hauenstein (MF); sophomore, Ellie Farrel (MF)
New faces to watch: senior, Abby Dannegger (D), junior Emma Snowman (MF)
Click here to see the Tigers’ team page!
By Chris Walker
When Wheaton Warrenville South held its 2019 commencement ceremony late last May, it included 11 Tigers players who had 39 seasons of varsity playing experience between them.
Today the Tigers don’t know which players will slot in to fill the void left by graduation. Nor do they know if they’ll even have a chance to play games this season, let alone even practice again live in-person with each other after the coronavirus halted the season before it barely got started.
It’s left longtime coach Guy Callipari wondering what kind of team he’s going to have for a season he doesn’t know will happen. And if that was hard enough to understand, now you know how difficult it is for Callipari to figure this all out.
“On paper you have an idea of what you think will work as a system while keeping in mind their particular roles, accenting their positives and negating what might be some of our weaknesses,” Callipari said. “We’re hoping to find some continuity and rhythm, and now that’ll have to come a little bit later.
“One of the great nuances of soccer, of sports in general, is every season you’re given another hand, and not only you, but everybody else at the table. You can say what you think is going to happen, but you don’t really know until you start laying down your hand.”
Callipari has seen a little of just about everything in his 24 seasons in coaching the girls as well as his nearly 30 years of coaching the boys in the fall. While most of his springs have ended with a winning a record and the Tigers have enjoyed many regional titles, a couple sectional championships and a pair of state appearances, he’s never found himself in pause mode in a season for any particular reason, let alone because of a worldwide pandemic.
This season he’s basically working with a completely new team.
“To be fair I haven’t seen them play, and we had six girls who played for four years for us and another five girls who played for three years so we had been pretty comfortable knowing the last few years what we were,” Callipari said. “There had been no room at the top for any movement, and that’s why this year has been a challenge to try to figure it out.”
It remains unknown what area will be most difficult for the Tigers to address this season with so little time afforded the team thus far due to the COVID-19 shutdown. First you must consider that they lost J.J. Aalbue, the DuKane Conference Player of the Year and a Chicagoland All-State selection who went on to NCCAA Player of the Year honors as a freshman at Grace College. Next come fellow CS All-Staters and all-conference players Paige Miller and Maria Dohse, as well as four-year goalkeeper Abbie Brennan, who is fourth all-time in saves and fifth all-time in shutouts in school history. Those are huge losses that don’t take into account seven other key players who played a ton of minutes the past three or four years.
“We did lose a lot of seniors, and we’ve added more than half of the team, so they’re new to the varsity level and it’s going to be different,” Tigers senior Cami Terkildsen said.
“We had a full week of practice before school got suspended so we knew it was going to be a big adjustment with a lot of new people, but I think with a lot of practice we were looking forward to that first game to come together (the cancelled home-, season-opener versus Hinsdale Central on March 23).”
As Callipari explained, he has primarily a new deck of cards 0(players) to work with. While last year’s contributors will undoubtedly be missed, now’s the time for plenty of other talented athletes to step up and make the most of the opportunity afforded them.
“We got 18 new girls on the team so it’s a huge change from last year, but in the brief time we got to work on training, and we were working a lot on shots and stuff. We were already making a lot of progress,” Tigers senior defender Sara Berardi said. “We were just getting used to each other, because so many of us are new together, but I think we showed potential.”
Berardi acknowledged that last year was a good year, but not necessarily a great one in her eyes in that the Tigers still fell short of goals, despite winning 14 games and suffering a two-game losing streak at worst.
“We had D1 (Division I) athletes and other kids who could’ve gone D1, and I thought we were going to be a lot better than we were,” she said.
“With all those starters graduating I was a bit surprised during the first couple of practices. I think the starting lineup was still going to be a surprise, but we were already showing some good signs.”
Berardi and her senior counterparts, Abby Becker and Sam Buol, return on the defensive end, which is where the Tigers return their most experience. Tirkildsen, junior Becca Hauenstein and sophomore Ellie Farrel return to the midfield and will play bigger roles this spring. Senior Abby Dannegger and junior Emma Snowman are two key newcomers with solid backgrounds who Callipari is also counting on to step in immediately and make an impact.
“It’s really difficult to be effective when you really don’t know what you have and what you’re capable of doing,” Callipari said. “You hope they’re trying to be the best that they can and you hope that can be good enough, but there is a lot of uncertainties.”
An official IHSA season is still up in the air, but Callipari will ensure his team has some sort of closure regardless of what happens with the coronavirus. For the time being, the Tigers are sticking with the structure of online practices, and technology is proving to be a godsend.
“We’ve stayed with the structure of the day of going to train between 3 and 4:15 p.m. daily,” he said. “We continue to do that and that’s a workout for the entire program of 35-40 (kids) everyday via Zoom. I lead the exercises, muscles, endurance, strength. We might add some cardio and skill work. So that’s the physical part, and we’re trying to include the tactical part. (Computer program) LAB 360 affords me to do something with each (player) on an independent module.”
Callipari is able to have his kids watch a seven-minute lesson and take a quiz. Then he can use the results to determine what’s been learned and by whom, as well as who needs additional instruction before the next module is shared.
“We want them to learn our system so we did some independent learning and team learning as well,” he said. “We’re trying to keep it fun and challenge the girls -- the toilet paper challenge (online), and we’re going to start highlighting the seniors via video. One thing we can’t do is fundraising and the charitable stuff. The Little Sisters things we can do.”
And it all ties back into the main story. However with Callipari in charge, there will be some form of soccer. Whether or not it’s closer to a normal season or a special one-game-only-type of year, there will be soccer.
“We had a meeting with the three captains and we’re looking at three scenarios of how this could end up,” he said. “We want to have closure.”
Callipari said regardless if the season resumes on May 1 or the final word arrives stating that the season is officially canceled, the Tigers will have some sort of finish to their respective high school soccer seasons.
“If we get back May 1 you could have closure with the tournament and conference and then three or four games including Senior Night,” he said. “Again, the fact that you look around and see it’s not going to happen in other scarier states, you don’t know if it’s going to happen here. It seems most are onboard for a conference tournament at the end where you can introduce all the seniors and have some closure, whatever that might be.”
Callipari ensures at least one game will be played among the program in some capacity to give the season closure and the seniors one lasting fond memory.
“Let’s say any of those (other options/ideas) fall apart, we’ll have a discussion with them about doing something in-house,” he said. “We can bring back last year’s team, and they can suit up, or their little sisters. We can do some form of awards or whatever that looks like and normalize it the best we can. It puts structure to something as a new normal.”
Anything would seem normal after being asked to stay inside 24/7 for weeks and cabin fever affecting everyone who is following the stay-in-place order.
“I think what I’m missing most is being with my teammates and my coaches every day,” Tirkildsen said. “All the stuff I love about soccer wouldn’t be the same if not for my teammates.
“The past three years of high school have been so much fun because of the soccer season. I have so many friends and with a new team this year I was so looking forward to being around them. It’s my one last time for memories and jokes and things other than sports that we relate to. It’s really fun everyday with the team bonding. I’m missing it.”
Berardi saw her brother Anthony, a two-time all-conference soccer player, enjoy his senior year at Wheaton Warrenville South in 2015. Having a sibling who already had that memorable, final season, Berardi recognizes what she’s missing, but knows there’s nothing she can do. She’s going to stay as positive as she can.
“I’m trying to stay as active as I can and trying to stay optimistic,” Berardi said. “But it’s hard to be optimistic when they keep pushing back the deadline for social distance.”
2020 Wheaton Warrenville South Tigers
Manager: Guy Callipari (24th year, 375-137-53)
2019 Record: 14-5-2 (3-3-1)
Graduation losses: J.J. Aalbue, Allie Anderson, Abbie Brennan, Evelyn Demsher, Maria Dohse, Ellery Fahey, Molly Fank, Katie Johnston, Paige Miller, Maddie Monaco, Audrey Siebert
Top returning players: seniors, Abby Becker (D), Sara Berardi (D), Sam Buol (D), Cam Tirkildsen (MF); junior, Becca Hauenstein (MF); sophomore, Ellie Farrel (MF)
New faces to watch: senior, Abby Dannegger (D), junior Emma Snowman (MF)
Click here to see the Tigers’ team page!