Harper trounces Triton
On Wednesday, the Harper College women's soccer team took on Triton College.
The Hawks and Trojans had previously met Sept. 10 at Triton, and Harper won 6-0.
It didn't get much better for Triton this time, as Harper won 11-2 and freshman Jaclyn LaRocca added to her NJCAA-best point total with 2 goals.
Coach Dwayne Cruz likes it that the Hawks are creating more scoring chances.
"We're getting healthy," he said. "Next week is going to be the test."
Harper's upcoming games include Indiana Tech, Joliet and College of DuPage.
"We're going to see how good we are," Cruz said of facing the Chaparrals.
• The Harper men's soccer team played one game this week, losing to Triton 4-2 Wednesday night. Abraham Soto and Qudus Agboola both scored for the Hawks, and sophomore goalie Andrew Larson had 6 saves.
The Trojans are ranked fourth in the NJCAA Division III poll.
Making strides: The Harper men's and women's cross country teams were the only community college teams to participate in last week's Griak Invitational held at the University of Minnesota.
"We had really good performances overall," said Harper coach Paul Paynter.
The recent flooding that has ravaged Minnesota caused the course to be what Paynter called a "slow soggy."
Paynter expects to bring two healthy squads to Friday's Carthage Invitaional.
"The tendency is to let down," after one of the biggest meets in the country, Paynter said.
The Carthage meet signals the second-to-last meet of the regular season.
Sophomore Chelsey McPhearson has been suffering the effects of having her wisdom teeth removed before the start of the season. Freshman Janet Franco (Schaumburg) has stepped into the No. 1 running spot for the Hawks that Paynter expected McPhearson to occupy.
Freshman Justin Smith (Palatine) could make his return this week for the men's team. Paynter believes that the Hawks "need to continue to be mentally sharp."
Progress in defeat: Harper's women's volleyball team dropped a three-gamer to No. 5-ranked Rock Valley on Tuesday, but coach Bob Vilsoet was placed with how his team was able to neutralize Golden Eagles All-American sophomore outside hitter Natalie Olsen.
The Hawks (15-11 overall, 3-4 N4C) travel to Joliet Junior College for a game today. The last time the two teams met, at the Sports and Wellness Center, the Wolves came away victorious.
Vilsoet believes today's game will go along way toward helping determing seedings for the regional.
"It will give us a good barometer on our improvements," Vilsoet said. "We will see if we can clean those (mistakes) up."
Vilsoet expects sophomore Joanna Strzelec to be back into tonight's starting lineup. He also praised the recent efforts of Bolawa Gbodebo (Hoffman Estates): "I've never seen a player improve as much as she has."
On Tuesday, Harper setter Alyssa Cazzato was named NJCAA Dvision III player of the week.