Batavia's seniors are all smiles on their special night

This was the way Batavia's seniors wanted to finish the home portion of their high school girls soccer careers.

Let's take that one step further - this is how all seniors want to celebrate their Senior Night.

Batavia survived some early Kaneland pressure, got a comfortable lead with two late goals in the first half, then sealed a 5-0 victory on the strength of two goals within 63 seconds early in the second half.

And the most influential attacking player was one of the team's many seniors - Hillary Cooper. After finding space on the wings early in the game, Cooper started moving inside to get shots. Those shots started to hit the back of the net and Cooper finished walked off her home field after recording a hat trick.

"It was Senior Night so we all had a lot of adrenaline," Cooper said. "This was our last home game and we wanted to put a show on and do what we can do."

The win clinches second place for the Bulldogs in the final Western Sun Conference standings. The win also continues an amazing run for Batavia. After starting the season 3-3-1, the Bulldogs have gotten on a roll and enter Saturday's regular season finale at St. Charles North 12-4-3.

Batavia finished WSC play 5-0-2.

"We're really proud of ourselves because we had a rough start to our season," Cooper said. "But now we're connecting and we're putting things together. We're doing what we do in practice and that's something that we're really happy about."

Kaneland (14-2-5, 3-2-2) has lost only to Geneva and Batavia this year and heads to the postseason following its strongest regular season. And for the early moments of Tuesday's game, the Knights were even with the Bulldogs.

"Yeah, I'm disappointed," Kaneland coach Scott Parillo said. "I thought we would have come out with a little more fire and a little more passion. It's the last time facing Batavia."

Next year, Batavia joins the Upstate Eight Conference as the Western Sun disbands. Kaneland moves into a new league itself and a rivalry that dates to the Little Seven Conference is likely to end.

"They pasted us," Parillo said. "They kicked our butts. But still a good season. Geneva and Batavia are pretty good teams."

But Batavia began to wrest the game from the Knights. Cooper broke the scoreless tie with 10 minutes to play in the half when she took a Tory Kinnard pass from midfield and chipped the goalkeeper. Two minutes later, Cooper struck again when she took a Bre Choffin pass, beat the offside trap and scored.

With the score 2-0 at halftime, Kaneland still had a chance to rescue the match. But that changed in the ninth minute of the second half.

First Abby Gray scored to put Batavia ahead 3-0. Cooper sealed the match 63 seconds later when she dribbled through a seam in the Kaneland penalty area and scored.

"I can't even express how good this was today," Kinnard said. "We were all 'on' today. I think everyone was excited for Senior Night and we wanted this to be big."

Gray completed the scoring with 15 minutes to play.

While Batavia has Saturday's game at St. Charles North to come, Kaneland's regular season ended on Tuesday.

"It was really uncharacteristic of us today," Parillo said. "Hopefully we bounce back and learn from it and get ready to go. Now, once you lose, you're done."