Chicagoland Soccer

Wildcats fall to Batavia
By Darryl Mellema

With a week between matches to prepare for Saturday's contest with West Chicago, Batavia's girls’ soccer team made good use of its practice time.

The Bulldogs worked on a number of things, one of them being defensive movement and communication. That work began to tell more and more in Batavia's 3-1 nonconference victory over the Wildcats.

That long layoff led to some uncertainty for Gianfrancesco and his team. Batavia's previous match had been a 1-0 defeat to St. Charles on April 14.

“I didn't know how we were going to come out and I don't think even the girls knew,” Gianfrancesco said. “We've been working on some stuff and West Chicago's got a nice team with some dangerous people up top, which was a big concern for us.”

Resilience is a factor for any athletic team, and the Bulldogs had to keep their heads together and rally after Andie Lazzerini's 13th minute goal from a Shelly Molskow pass.

“At first, it was a little messed up, but as the game went along, we did a great job organizing, especially stopping their quick forwards,” Batavia junior Shelby Stone said. “I was so proud and excited that we played very well. I give credit to our forwards. Even though it's not their job, they did a great job coming back to help us out.”

Up to that point of the match, West Chicago (5-9-1) pushed Batavia (5-4-1) backward and had a series of chances. Through the match, the Wildcats were able to get possession moving, but Batavia started to shut off the service to the frontrunners as the match progressed.

“Usually it's the same thing for us,” West Chicago coach Cesar Gomez said. “We usually out-possess the other team and then the breaks don't go our way. We hit the crossbar and then they get goals to go in. But when you lose concentration just a little bit – I believe the phrase is 90 percent concentration equals 100 percent failure. We haven't played a complete game yet and when things like that happen, it can go against you in a hurry.”

Rather than struggle after falling behind. Batavia continued to make headway and started to put its own game plan into action. By the midpoint of the half, the Bulldogs seemed to have shaken off the effects of falling behind and were ready to work toward scoring themselves.

“I liked the way we rebounded from them scoring,” Gianfrancesco said. “I like the way we came back. I'd say we played about 60 out of the 80 minutes.”

West Chicago's lead lasted 6 minutes before a Kayla Stolfa free kick fell to Jessica Milanese in front of the goal and Milanese converted the close-range chance.

“I think all three of the goals are important, but when you're down 1-0, you need to tie it up,” Milanese said. “Then you can push forward and try to win.”

Now the chances began to fall Batavia's way. Anna Zeyen shot high, a Brittany Wahlen flip throw created havoc in the penalty area and another shot went wide and finally Alex Hanna sent a shot off the football crossbar, which is part of the same goal apparatus at Batavia's stadium.

The Bulldogs finally took the lead with 5:45 left in the first half when a Wahlen flip throw-in fell to Karina Rosales, who scored from close range.

“We're just working with Karina and she's doing a better job of staying higher,” Gianfrancesco said. “She did a nice job staying higher, dropping into space or playing the ball out.”

The second half moved similarly to the first. West Chicago had perhaps an edge in possession, though the Wildcats also suffered from some wayward passing to stymie their own buildup.

“I thought we played well,” Gomez said. “We've lost nine games, and we out-possessed most of them and it's just not going the way it's supposed to go. Our game is possession. We talked about getting it up-and-over today, and they didn't get that going. Batavia's a good team, but there were times when we could have played better.”

But Batavia continued to dominate scoring chances, though without adding to their lead. Finally a quick-breaking move with 4 minutes to play led to Paige Renfus scoring the final goal of the match.

“We've been working on finishing things like the big throws and free kicks,” Milanese said. “That's something where you're given an opportunity to put it in, and you've got to do it. We did a pretty good job of that today.”

Highlighting the Bulldogs' versatility is Shelby Stone. Listed as a forward on the roster, the junior can play any of the 10 outfield positions, and she sometimes does in the course of a short period of time in a match. She moved forward and got out wide when Batavia attacked on Saturday, then moved into a central defensive role when her team had to defend.

“I started her up top and that's where I prefer her,” Gianfrancesco said. “She's like a defender up top. She sticks her nose in there, but she's intelligent and understands the runs off the ball, so I have to drop her back, to solidify things back there. If all I had to do was let her defend somebody – it's done.”

That fluid motion through the lineup means the Bulldogs need to be talking with each other on the field. On Saturday, they were doing that, and the result was a cohesive performance.

“In practice, the last two days, a lot of what we worked on was mixing in our defense and getting all 11 of us into the attack,” Stone said. “There are still things that we need to work on, but this gives us an awesome goal to push forward. If we can do this every game, this is how we should be playing, and it is so exciting.”

Batavia's defense – starters Alison Grimm, Stone, Jordyn Cikesh and Kayla Stolfa and reserves Lindsay Spears and Meagan Reinecke – held its own as well, and Gianfrancesco said he is using a six-player rotation defensively, which is slightly unorthodox.

“Usually you don't like rotating than many people, but it's kind of hard not to because in a sense, they all deserve to play and it works,” Gianfrancesco said. “In that sense, it's even more communication. Our outside backs were doing a nice job getting forward, but our forwards were doing a nice job of finding them.”

That defense has had two rough outings this year, in a 3-3 tie in the season-opener with Wheaton-Warrenville South and in a 4-2 loss to Buffalo Grove. In its other eight matches, Batavia has allowed seven goals.

Moving forward into the midfield, Stolfa was dangerous sending the ball toward West Chicago's penalty area.

“She's got that beautiful diagonal ball that she can get in,” Gianfrancesco said. “I think both of the outside backs, (Stolfa and Grimm) do a nice job getting up and into the attack.”

With its long lay-off over, Batavia gets into a more-regular flow of matches now, with a match against Larkin followed by next weekend's trip to the Moline Invitational and then the May 1 annual tilt against rival Geneva.

“We can get kind of a little bit of momentum,” Gianfrancesco said. “When you look at the schedule, it's hard to get consistency. How can you take a week off and be able to play? I'm hoping we can keep it going.”

West Chicago still have seven matches to play, starting with Tuesday nonconference match at Glenbard South, and there are still things the Wildcats want to do before heading into the postseason.

“We need to guard the lead a little bit more,” Gomez said. “We had the lead and we want to keep in that position. Whatever we were doing that got us the first goal, we want to keep doing that. I see encouraging stuff about how we play and people come to watch us and say we're a pretty team to watch. But in the end, it's about W's and we haven't seen that in a while.”