Vikings draw with rival Batavia
By Darryl Mellema

There wasn’t much that was pretty about Tuesday’s Batavia-Geneva match. Certainly the weather carried a high “Grossness Factor” with cold temperatures and a match-long drizzle leaving fans huddled under blankets and umbrellas at Geneva’s Burgess Field.

The play on the field was frequently ragged, always robust, though never tipping to the point to where any players were yellow-carded or sternly reprimanded by the referee.

But if the match was played fairly, there wasn’t an area where players had time on the ball or any break from the physicality of the Upstate Eight Conference River Division contest, which ended in a 1-1 tie.

On a night when neither team generated many scoring chances, Geneva (6-7-1, 0-2-1) took the lead 6 minutes before halftime with one of the best attacking moves of the match. Mary Landry sent a pass up the right wing along the turf to Amanda Lulek, who sent a cross along the turf to the far post, where Molly Axen tapped the ball into the net.

“It was a great goal, a total team effort,” Geneva coach Megan Owens said. “(Landry) attacked up the middle and played the ball to (Lulek) and (Lulek) had a great cross and it was a great finish. The girls worked really hard and that’s all we can ask for as coaches.”

Trailing by a goal at halftime, Batavia (6-2-3, 2-2-1) needed some sort of response, and it got one three minutes into the half when Shelby Stone hit a long-range effort that was partially-saved and eventually landed in the net.

“It’s awesome – going back to our rivalry – to score against the neighboring school,” Stone said. “It’s always ten times more exciting to score against them and it helped us in the end. I’m thrilled.”

The result left each team wishing for more in some ways, though the lack of scoring chances meant neither team had many opportunities to break the deadlock.

“They’re frustrated with the result,” Owens said. “I felt we dominated much of the run of the play, and unfortunately the scoreboard didn’t show that, but that tends to happen in soccer and we’ve experienced that a few times this season.”

For Batavia, the match proved to be the latest in which they rallied from a deficit to gain at least a partially-positive result. The Bulldogs trailed West Chicago 1-0 at halftime on Saturday and eventually won 3-1.

“Again the mental toughness thing of coming out and persevering,” Batavia coach Mark Gianfrancesco said. “We were down 1-0 and we’ve been here before and we had to keep playing.”

The Batavia-Geneva match concludes the regular season matches involving the four Tri Cities teams. In this mini league, St. Charles North defeated Batavia, Geneva and St. Charles East, St. Charles East defeated Batavia and Geneva while Batavia and Geneva finished with Tuesday’s tie.

“Obviously with the Tri Cities rivalries, it’s always a big competition,” Owens said. “Both sides fought really hard. We’re just trying to work on that last touch in the offensive third and get shots off.”

But the result was also a positive one for Batavia.

“I don’t think these seniors have ever, at the varsity level, beaten Geneva,” Gianfrancesco said. “This was a good result. I think we panicked a little bit at times. We had some opportunities. We missed some passes we could have connected on.”

The closest to scoring either team came without putting the ball in the net came late in the first half when Geneva’s Kayla Stolfa sent a goalward shot that was misplayed in the Vikings’ penalty area before Molly Stanfa finally saved a goal with a clearance.

“Molly did a great job,” Owens said. “She was playing very alert tonight and she had to come up big on that save.”

Stanfa left the match with an injury – the severity of which Owens said would be determined later in the week.

“Hopefully we can get her back here quickly,” Owens said. “She’s a very important part of our defense, which usually does a very good job of keeping the other team out of the back. They did a great job tonight. They had one shot from far out and we got our hands on it, but it’s slippery. Crazy things happen in games like this.”

Axen is just back from an ankle injury, a recurring injury that has limited her playing time this spring.

“She’s sprained her ankle twice now,” Owens said. “I was kind of hesitant to bring her in. But this game means a lot to these kids. She really wanted to get out there and she’s a senior. She contributed. She did some really positive things. She got on the end of that cross. We’re hoping to get her healthy  because she does great things for us.”

Gianfrancesco said Batavia adjusted in the match to meet the threat created by Geneva’s Annie Waldoch.

“We wanted to slide on ‘15’ (Waldoch),” Gianfrancesco said. “She was winning a lot of balls and we wanted to contain her and challenge her because she was having her way with it for a while.”

Owens mentioned that Waldoch’s performance was the latest in a series of quality performances for her this year.

“Annie dominates,” Owens said. “That girl – she’s got a head of steel. She was such a dominant force, winning all those headers and being so aggressive. She does so many positive things for our team. I can’t speak any more highly of her. She leaves it all on the field. She’s a warrior and battles, no matter who the opponents are. She’s a great soccer player and on top of that, she’s a great kid. We’re lucky to have her on the team.”

By winning its pool at the Naperville Invitational, Geneva earns a Thursday match against defending 3A state champion Naperville North in the tournament’s quarterfinals.

“That’s what high school soccer’s all about,” Owens said. “We get to face off against the defending state champs, ranked No. 1 in state. It’s a great opportunity to go out there, leave it all on the field and play against a U.S. National Team player (Zoe Swift.) How many opportunities do you have to do that in a lifetime? We’re excited. We’re excited to see how we square off against them.”

The Bulldogs’ best spell of the match came in the moments just after halftime, when the speed of play improved and so did the forward purpose of their attacks. That attacking period was punctuated by Stone’s goal – and a second Stone shot shortly after that went over the crossbar.

“I liked the way we came out in the second half,” Gianfrancesco said. “We really kind of took it to them right away and we were in their end, which was nice to see.”

And as with the West Chicago match, the revival came thanks to instant application of halftime adjustments suggested by Gianfrancesco.

“Like we talked about at halftime, we wanted to come out fast,” Stone said. “It’s always our goal, but this time, we proved it to ourselves. We came out hard and finished our opportunity that we had. We could have finished more and would have loved to finish more, but you take what you can get and we’re happy with the result.”

Gianfrancesco said the halftime setting was similar in ways that went beyond the score and went into the tactical situation in which Batavia found itself.

“Geneva was very similar, how they were set up, as West Chicago was on Saturday,” Gianfrancesco said. “Once you broke their forward and midfield line, there was a gap between their midfielders and defenders. Once we broke that and were able to get it to our forwards – and if they were able to make quality decisions with it – it was easier to go forward.”

By the time the match was over, Batavia had the kind of result it might have struggled to achieve in past seasons.

“It’s definitely a step in the right direction,” Stone said. “Hopefully we can play like this but just a touch better in the end games. We tried to come out and play for 80 minutes. We did that. We were a little slow in the beginning but we tried our best and we did all right.”

Batavia heads this weekend to the Tournament of Champions in Burlington, Iowa, which brings together schools from Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Missouri. The Bulldogs have been placed in “Bracket B” and D.C. Everest from Schofield, WI in Friday’s opening round. Teams play a further two games on Saturday.

“We haven’t been there any time recently,” Stone said. “We’re kind of going into it new. But we’re excited. It’s the Tournament of Champions for a reason. We were invited to it, so that’s another positive thing that they think we’re good enough to be in it. We’re excited and hopefully we come out of there with the championship.”

When they return from Iowa, Batavia has only a handful of matches remaining in the regular season. The process of preparing for the postseason has already begun.

“I think it’s going well,” Stone said. “We still have to touch up a few more things. Obviously no one’s going to be perfect. Hopefully we can be perfect in the end and take a long journey through regionals, sectionals and state. It’s one of our goals to get into regionals and keep moving on from there.”

Brittany Wahlen’s recovery from illness allowed her to play some minutes on Tuesday for Batavia, though she did not play as much as she did when she was 100 percent healthy.

“It’s just easing her back into it,” Gianfrancesco said. “She came out more physical in the second half, which was good. But we’ve got a good group of center mids and they all bring something to the table. (Wahlen’s) physicalness and (Stone’s) leadership and fitness level of getting up and back and Alexis Bryl’s creativity and (Kim Stanczak’s) great leg and distribution. Depending what the combination is, and the speed of play, they all help.”

In central defense, Batavia’s Lindsay Spears worked well throughout the match to limit Geneva’s chances.

“I thought Lindsay and Emily (Stanczak) did a nice job in the middle there, combining with Nicki (Seiton) there in the back,” Gianfrancesco said. “We’ve been on them since the first couple of games of the season just for the communication. The communications between the three of them was good today and has been getting better. I said that to Nicki when they came off, that the communication was good today, there weren’t any mistakes back there that they couldn’t handle. And that’s due to the fact that they were smart back there and they were talking. Lindsay did a nice job today.”