St. Charles North tops Batavia
One of the traits often overlooked when discussing a goalscorer’s ability is opportunism. You can be big, fast, have a great shot — but can you find the ball and create something when no one else can?
Sammy Gage answered “yes” twice to that question on Tuesday night and scored a pair of goals just through speed of mind in seeing chances and then converting them.
Those goals were the only tallies in this Upstate Eight Conference River matchup, the first conference game between the North Stars and conference newcomer Batavia.
“It’s just a matter of anticipating where the ball is going to be,” Gage said. “Lauren Koehl, that first ball, we’ve done it a thousand times in practice where she hits it and I run onto it. Alex (Gage) did the same thing tonight.”
Gage scored the first when the North Stars’ Koehl got onto a goal kick, quick fed Gage, who scored ad nearly the midpoint of the first half. Gage’s second goal came 5 minutes into the second half, taking advantage of a ball Batavia’s goalkeeper came to clear outside the penalty area and didn’t get past the North Stars senior forward.
The North Stars (4-0, 2-0) are still finding their feet in the season, but are beginning to play better with each match they play.
“We’ve been working really hard on possession, whether it’s in our defensive half or our offensive half, where they can see pattern after pattern,” St. Charles North coach Ruth Vostal said. “I think they’re working into a rotation between our players and the formation that we want. I was happy with the second half, where I felt we played with more intensity and more fight than we did in the first half.”
Batavia (2-3-1, 0-1) is still fitting players into its lineup in various spots on the field. The Bulldogs settled into the match first and had a strong opening 10 minutes. From that point, and certainly after St. Charles North opened the scoring, the Bulldogs struggled.
“We’re a work in progress,” Batavia coach Jim McAlpin said. “We moved some people around and we’re doing some things a little bit differently.”
Batavia’s buildup was good through the midfield. But passes to the front-runners were hard to connect, especially with as the North Stars settled into the match themselves.
“We don’t have great speed and goal scoring is difficult for us right now,” McAlpin said. “We’ve just got to work hard and keep it simple.”
For the match, the Bulldogs had one shot on goal, though they did advance the ball into dangerous places at times and the only thing lacking was that final effort toward the net.
“I like some of the things I’m seeing,” McAlpin said. “We’ve got to find some people who can step up and help our central midfielders. I thought they did a nice job when the ball was played on the ground.”
McAlpin said the key is finding which players will ultimately slot into certain roles, and then he said he feels his team will start gaining positive results.
“I’ve got to find some central midfielders to give our starters a break,” McAlpin said. “I’ve got to find another outside midfielder and I’ve got to find another outside back. We got all 23 in there today and we were mixing and matching.”