Girls soccer: Burzlaff hat trick propels Harvest Christian to regional win

Ellie Burzlaff has scored several hat tricks in her life, but so far none in her senior year for Harvest Christian. At least that was until Wednesday. Burzlaff's 3 goals against Elgin Academy led the Lions to a 6-0 victory in the Class 1A Regional semifinals at Westminster Christian.

Harvest will play the winner of Thursday's other regional semifinal game between the host Warriors and St. Edward for the regional title on Friday.

"I have been wanting to get a hat trick all season especially being my senior year," Burzlaff said. "I've come close a couple times, but it was exciting to finally get one. The bigger thing was we won."

Burzlaff wasted no time getting the Lions on the scoreboard, scoring just 3:27 into the game on an assists from Nicole Ahrens.

"Because we are such a young team we had a lot of nerves coming into this important of a game," Burzlaff said. "So getting that first goal helped to set the tone. It puts the other team on their toes and gives us fight and enthusiasm."

Burzlaff made it 2-0 on an assist from Jessica Olsen with 11:48 left in the first half. Olsen followed with a goal of her own just before halftime to make it 3-0 Lions.

"We had a great start to the game," Harvest coach Jeremy Wendal said. "Not only making the goal early on but just the way we were moving the ball. Being able to make good passes and penetrate the defense right from the beginning got us clicking on all cylinders."

After goals from Ahrens and Abby Lopez in the second half made it 5-0 Burzlaff finished off her hat trick with an unassisted goal with just over 15 minutes left to play.

"She is so fearless," Wendal said. "You talk about a great leader. She is it."

The Lions (7-6-1) also played great defense and had a 20-3 shot on goal advantage.

"Defense wins championships," Wendal said. "Taylor Keeran and Hannah Caldwell were rock solid in the back for us."

The Hilltoppers close out the season 3-10.

"We fell behind early and that was pretty much it. We just couldn't recover," Elgin Academy coach Kevin Talbot said. "After that first goal we held off a good team for as long as we could, but just couldn't finish when we got our few opportunities. We came a long ways though this year and I was proud of our progress."