“We wanted to try to shut her down and make someone else beat us,” Lyons Township coach Bill Lanspeary said, of the plan to keep Waubonsie Valley’s All-America player Vanessa DiBernardo out of net.

But despite a downright courageous effort by Lions’ freshman Ari Kowalski in haunting her throughout Tuesday’s Class 3A super-sectional, DiBernardo scored the game’s lone goal, ending the Lions’ season.

“Ari and our backs – everyone on our team was aware of where she was,” Lanspeary said. “Ari did a great job staying on her and we had help off of her, that really for the most part contained her, as well as you can.”

DiBernardo hit a perfect shot from a ridiculous angle on the right side in the 71st minute, sending Waubonsie Valley to its third state finals in four years.

The Warriors turned their possession game up a notch in the second half, and the pressure eventually paid off.

“We didn’t really possess that well in this game, the way that we could have,” Lions’ senior Katie Nasenbenny said. “They make it hard to do that, though, because they’re obviously a great possession team.

I think that we got to the ball a lot but maybe didn’t play smart with it, and they did.”

The decision to shadow DiBernardo with Kowalski was a double-edged sword.

“She’s just tenacious and she’s never going to give up,” Lanspeary said of Kowalski. “She’s so good at reading the play and stepping up to win balls when she can … she did a great job on (DiBernardo).

But I think (Kowalski) staying on (DiBernardo) kind of hurt us in the attack a little bit, because we were so used to having those four in back, possessing the ball and coming up, that putting Ari out of position kind of threw us off a little bit.”

Nasenbenny fired near post on a good chance late in the contest, but Warriors’ keeper Allison Fox was on the spot to save it.

“We still had a number of opportunities coming off of some great individual efforts,” Lanspeary said. “Katie and Kelsey (Holbert) look for each other all the time, Lauren Moberg had a couple of opportunities, and Mackie (Furlong) had a couple of opportunities. So we had some chances.”

For Lyons Township, the 2010 season was an exceptional one, as the Lions posted an 18-5-1 record. They went 5-1 in placing second in the West Suburban Conference Silver Division, and had winning record in two of Illinois’ top tournaments. The Lions went 2-1-1 in the Naperville Invitational, and 3-1 in the Pepsi Showdown.

Lanspeary will say goodbye to six seniors on his roster, in Nasenbenny, Steph Condon, Hope Spangler, Lauren Grissim, Renata Butikas, and Kelsey Sopron.

“They’re fantastic and we’re going to miss them, big-time,” Lanspeary said. “Both their play on the field and their leadership off the field. But they’ve led in such a way that they’ve left kind of a blueprint for the other kids to follow, and we’ve really had that for a number of years, with seniors leaving that behind.

They were phenomenal. We’ve played good soccer and we’ve found ways to put the ball in the net. We had players like Katie and Kelsey step up, and Hope Spangler scored big goals for us this year, and some other players scored some timely goals, too, like Moberg and Mackie.”

The junior Holbert had a breakout season this year and will return next year, along with rostered juniors Elise Gordon, Moberg, Coco Corrigan, Kamey Murphy, Emma Meyering, Maddie Pappas, Maddie Mertz, Sarah Michaels, Hannah Drogosz, and Anna Devine.

Sophomores Furlong, Sarah Mazur, Maggie Orlowski, and Juliet Lusson will also be back, along with freshmen Kowalski and Abbie Pasquinelli.

And another strong core of seniors this season helped water next year’s crop for the Lions.

“When Nasenbenny was a freshman, (then-senior) Jackie Hansen too her under her wing,” Lanspeary said. “Katie worked with Ari all summer. It’s been great camaraderie among the kids and it’s a great team. They’ve been a lot of fun to be around.”

Nasenbenny was pleased to go out in her senior year with a quality side that posted a strong season.

“Kelsey Holbert had a good year last year but she had a much better year this year,” Nasenbenny said. “She’s a great kid, scoring-wise and offensively. Defensively we really stepped it up in the back, and the midfield has done a great job throughout the season.

And we’ve got some good young kids that will be back next year.”

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