YHS Soccer Finishes Barbfest with Victory

A special thanks to Assistant Head Coach Andrew Johnson for writing the following article. You can follow the soccer team on its website here and on its Facebook page here.

With a convincing 4-1 victory over Indian Creek of their final game of the DeKalb Barbfest tournament, the Lady Foxes finished the week with 2 wins and 2 losses.  

Tuesday's game at home against conference foe Streator ended with a hard fought 2-1 victory in which the team rallied around one another for their best team effort of the season.  The first score happened in the 14th minute when Nikki Hills followed up on a bouncing ball from a great corner kick by Sarah Megazzini.  After a goal off a stellar blast from a Streator striker, Julia Busco decided to end the tie with only 5 minutes left to go in the game.  

"She looked up, we looked up, and saw the ball and the net.  It happened that quickly -- she fired the loose ball into the back of the net.  She's a young player with a lot of talent, so we hope that's her confident booster moving forward," states an excited Coach Mike Jacobs.

After winning that important conference game, a highly talented Sycamore team came to town on Thursday and walked away with an 8-0 victory over the Lady Foxes.  Commenting on the loss, Coach Jacobs wasn't down, adding, "The score didn't seem to indicate how hard and well our girls played tonight.  In fact, we believe the girls actually played even better than on our win Tuesday.  This is just a true testament to how good Sycamore is, along with some mistakes that unfortunately cost us goals.  We're not walking away with our head down."

Going into the weekend's two games in the DeKalb Barbfest, the coaches were looking forward to the team chemistry that was really starting to take shape.

"There have been some frustrations and surprises this season -- both good and bad -- but right now, we're where we want to be as a team and a young program," comments a content Coach Andrew Johnson.  

For the first game, Yorkville faced a fast Hinckley-Big Rock team.  The first half was primarily controlled by Yorkville, but the Foxes let in two goals by half and were down 2-0.  Coach Jacobs wasn't worried.  

"We told the girls at half that yes, Hinckley had some talent and some speed, but if we wanted to get back in the game, we easily could.  We just had to want it."  They wanted it.  Halfway through the second half, Yorkville had tied it up on goals from senior Sam Mahoney and freshman MacKenzie Lee.

Unfortunately, those goals were eventually matched with two more from the opponent and Yorkville walked away with a 4-2 loss.  

That loss didn't hurt their spirits too much, as they had another game in 20 minutes, against Indian Creek.  

"Similar to the Sycamore game, we walked away with a loss, but that was yet another game of our team playing better than they had the night before. Again, we are very content right now.  We are young and talented -- we are just working out some kinks at this point," says Coach Johnson.  

By halftime of this game, Yorkville was up 3-0, thanks to a hat trick by Brittany Straznickas.  

"She's been wanting those goals for a while, and she deserved them," says Coach Jacobs.  "She stays after practice almost every day and works on her shot.  Again, she deserved those."  

The Foxes added one more goal to wrap up a convincing 4-0 victory.  MacKenzie Lee was named to the All-Tournament Team, based on her performances on the field and in net.  

Yorkville takes on Oswego at home on Tuesday, along with a Senior Night conference battle against Dixon at home on Thursday.  The week wraps up with the Lady Foxes traveling to Ottawa on Friday for another conference matchup.