Hawks fight through wind, Gators to post 6th win

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By Gary Larsen

Bartlett sophomore Nicole Gobbo hit a long-range shot on Friday like a great golf shot played just right into a cross-wind.

The Hawks’ striker put the game’s only goal on the scoreboard in a 1-0 Hawks’ win at Crystal Lake South, with a shot from 25 yards out that curled under the crossbar in the first half.

Coaches like their players unafraid to put a ball on frame from distance, especially in conditions like Friday’s.

“You never know what’s going to happen with the ball in a wind like this,” Bartlett coach Heather Thomas said. “You can catch people off guard with a shot like that. You just have to balance that with taking them on. You need a little bit of both.”

Thomas enjoyed what she saw from her 6-2 team on Friday, in a game that featured two teams that simply hitched up their socks and got after each other for 80 minutes.

“They battled,” Thomas said of the two teams. “It wasn’t a pretty game at all because of the wind but (Crystal Lake South) didn’t stop, which is awesome, and this was our hardest win.”

Friday’s win marked Bartlett’s third consecutive shutout and sixth this season. In addition to its 6 shutouts, Bartlett has only given up 2 goals in its first 8 games, and senior keeper Erin Zaideman’s leadership in back has a lot to do with that stat.

“She’s such a good leader on and off the field,” Thomas said. “She’s always talking, encouraging, and saying positive remarks, the whole game. We’re going to miss her next year.”

Zaideman rarely stopped urging her squad to stay on its toes and keep pushing, throughout Friday’s game.

“She always tells us what to do and she’s really good at it,” Bartlett’s Sam Barone said. “She has the better eye back there and that’s why we listen to her. Sometimes you can get sick of it but she knows what she’s saying.”

Another key to the Hawks’ shutout was the play of Lisa Palmer, who slid from midfield back to sweeper in place of starter Rachel Irwin, who was absent due to illness.

“She held our defense together,” Barone said of Palmer. “If it wasn’t for her, I think we might have let them through. She was key.”

Barone slid from forward into Palmer’s spot at midfield, and she and Trish Donlon fought hard to settle the midfield on a grass field and a windy day. The Hawks played their first 7 games on the artificial turf of Streamwood’s Millennium Field, but they practice on a grass field that had them ready for the field in Crystal Lake.
 
The strong wind that swept the field from start to finish limited the way Friday’s game could be played.

“You just have to realize that you can’t play in the air as much as we like to,” Barone said. “We had to play on the ground and play as a team.”

“We’re finally coming together. Before we were dribbling too much and not passing, and I think we finally realized that we can pass it to each other. We’re gaining confidence in each other. But we don’t all play together (in the off-season), so it’s going to take a few games to get used to it.”

Despite the Hawks ability to severely limit their opponents’ scoring thus far, Bartlett is not necessarily a defensive-minded team.

“I think coach (Sarah Marks) and I have a little more of an attack mentality. You can’t win unless you put the ball in the net,” Thomas said. “We have it balanced at both ends so far, but we like to see them a little bit more offensive – work it through the middle, and then get forward and get high.”