Hawks 1-1-1 after tie with Batavia

By Darryl Mellema

It’s always a little disconcerting when you get a wind chill reading during a spring sporting contest.

Yet for those who wanted to know just how cold it really was at Millennium Field on Tuesday night, the press box folks were ready to provide the information. For the record, the air temperature at kickoff was 40 degrees, but with the strong wind from the east whipping across the artificial surface, it really felt like 29 degrees.

It took awhile for the match to warm up too, though when it did, Bartlett showed off its strong passing movement in a 1-1 Upstate Eight Conference River matchup with Batavia, one of the conference’s three new teams this spring.

“Every game, we’ve been piecing little parts of our game together,” Bartlett coach Heather Thomas said. “We need to start working ‘big picture.’ Things that we’ve been working on in practice, we need to see put them all together, full scale.”

The Hawks (1-1-1, 0-0-1) found their feet first in a first half where neither team fund much offensive momentum. The best chance came when Lisa Palmer sent a lead pass to Nicole Gobbo in the 25th minute of play. Gobbo took a shot that was saved by Batavia goalie Allie Fredendall. The rebound came to Lindsay Bruzzini, whose first-time shot went wide.

Donlon had a free kick saved 12 minutes from halftime and Gobbo and Nicki Noreen combined on a corner kick 5 minutes before halftime, with the ball falling to Bruzzini, who forced another Fredendall save.

Bartlett’s domination continued early in the second half though Batavia started to have chances of its own too. The Bulldogs’ Bri Davey shot over Natalia Grodzki’s crossbar 3 minutes into the half and Hawks defender Jessica Cosentino had to clear off the goal line 5 minutes later.

But Bartlett was finding open spaces in which to sweep forward. Time and again, Gobbo played a ball from the center of the field to one wing or another. Other times, Donlon and Noreen combined as the Hawks moved fluidly through midfield.

That pressure resulted in the first goal of the game. Noreen scored 15 minutes into the half from the left wing on a shot whipped through the penalty area that found the right side netting.

“I got a missed touch and (the ball) almost ran out of bounds,” Noreen said.

Frustratingly for Bartlett, the Hawks lead lasted just 90 seconds. Hannah Schweigert brought Batavia level with a left-sided 30-yard free kick that crept into the net at the right post.

“We did such a great job of getting (Noreen) the ball and she’d been beating her player all game long,” Thomas said. “And then we come back and they score. We say all the time that the first five after you score, you have to be alert. And we just go and give up a weak goal and unfortunately we couldn’t recover after that. You can’t give up silly goals like that.”

The match continued to flow at that point, and Bartlett nearly regained the lead 90 seconds after Schweigert’s goal. Cosentino and Noreen combined and Noreen hit the crossbar.

Through much of the match, Gobbo orchestrated from the midfield. The junior’s passing skills and off-the-ball movement helped keep a number of Bartlett attacks from bogging down in the center of the field.

“She’s another one who’s got great speed,” Thomas said. “If we get it to her and she can turn, she can beat lots of players out there. She’s got deceiving speed.”

Working with that strong crosswind, Grodzki’s concentration had to be strong throughout the match, and it was.

“(Grodzki) did a great job, especially when you have players running at you,” Bartlett coach Heather Thomas said. “She's done a great job for us all season long. She's filled some pretty big shoes very, very well and she's a good keeper.”

Noreen said she enjoyed playing a solid team like Batavia (0-1-1, 0-0-1), which has moved to the Upstate Eight this season after the Western Sun Conference dissolved in 2010. The other new teams in the conference are Geneva, another former Western Sun participant and Metea Valley, which is competing as a varsity program for the first time this spring.

“We played a good team. It's fun and really intense,” Noreen said. “You have to make good runs and all have to work as a team.”

While some teams are just starting their schedules and others are dealing with poor playing conditions, Bartlett has played four times already and knows Millennium Field will be in perfect shape the next time the Hawks step foot onto it. St. Charles North and South Elgin played immediately after the Batavia-Bartlett match without any worries of how the surface had been damaged in the first match.

“We’re pretty lucky that we get to play on Turf,” Thomas said. “We get in some more games than some of the surrounding schools.”