Bakers help Lakes rise to victory
A couple of hours after freshmen Brittani and Danielle Griesbaum ran on Lakes’ Class 2A state championship 3,200-meter relay downstate, two other twins did their share of running on a soccer field for the Eagles.
Like the Griesbaums, seniors Jenna and Leah Baker also celebrated under a hot Saturday sun.
Whew.
It seems there’s no student newspaper jinx at Lakes.
“Our school newspaper even did an article about all of us, too,” Jenna Baker said.
Forward Leah Baker scored 3 goals for her first high school hat trick, and her fraternal twin Jenna, the team’s newly installed sweeper, helped stabilize the defense, as host Lakes held on to edge Grayslake Central 4-3 in the teams’ Class 2A regional championship match in Lake Villa.
Leah Baker’s first two goals were identical.
After Grayslake Central struck for a goal in the fifth minute, Baker headed home a cross from Becca Pierce four minutes later. Then after a Katie Mason corner kick was headed in the box by her Lakes teammate Maya Schmitt, the ball found Baker, who used head again to find the back of the net for a 2-1 lead in the 15th minute.
Lakes (14-9-1) had the advantage for good in earning a berth in their own sectional. The Eagles will play Lake Forest in a semifinal at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday.
And to think Leah Baker had a head-to-head collision with a Resurrection player in the Eagles’ regional semifinal. The injury left her with a bump the size of a “golf ball,” she said, above her left eye.
“You wouldn’t have known it,” Jenna Baker, who will play at Illinois Wesleyan, said of her twin, who will continue her soccer career at Carroll College. “She has no fear. She just goes out ready to head anything.”
“I got hurt my last game so I’m pretty sure I’m not really with it all,” Leah Baker said. “I’m surprised I had this good of a game.”
With Lakes up 4-2 with less than eight minutes left, Baker had a fourth goal waved off because she was ruled to have been offside. She headed the ball in after Sarina Umlauf’s shot skimmed the crossbar.
“The fourth one hit (in the same spot) where I got hit (by the Resurrection player),” Leah Baker said.
Earlier in the half, an attempted pass by teammate Mikaela Brown pegged Baker in the back of the head.
Talk about a headache.
“I was like, ‘I got to come out,’ ” said Leah Baker, smiling.
Lakes couldn’t afford to take Jenna Baker off the field. It was just recently that Eagles coach Kevin Kullby moved Leah’s sister from center midfield to sweeper.
“We put Jenna Baker at sweeper and that made a huge difference in terms of the quality of our defense,” Kullby said. “She controlled the back very well. She made timely steals, timely headers. Not taking anything away from the other three backs (Mason, Hannah Jewell and Nicole Mogged), who did an outstanding job.
“She has a presence back there,” Kullby added of Jenna Baker, “just like her older sister, Alyssa (who’s playing at Carthage College).”
Lakes’ new sweeper is adjusting to her new responsibilities.
“It’s just so much different,” Jenna Baker said. “It’s a different view on the field. It’s a different role in the game. You’re not as offensive. It’s just way different.”
Lakes’ third goal? No different than Leah Baker’s first couple.
Freshman Nicole De Ambrose scored on a header off a pass from Jessica Cipolla late in the opening to stretch the Eagles’ lead to 3-1.
Grayslake Central (12-8) finally answered in the 51st minute, when Sarah Gauger’s shot through traffic, after a pass from Jennifer Biondo, found the back of the net.
Leah Baker got her hat-trick goal after pressure in the box from Umlauf resulted in a giveaway. The opportunistic Baker positioned herself in front of the net and this time used her foot to deposit a high shot into the net, making it 4-2 with 13:47 left.
Grayslake Central picked up its intensity after that and gave itself hope when Alex Wilson fired in a shot from outside the box.
Wilson had another chance in the final half minute. Her shot resulted in a corner kick, but a packed-in defense held for Lakes.
Rams sweeper Michelle Lettenmair kept Lakes from scoring more.
“No. 20 (Lettenmair) is an excellent player,” Kullby said. “She seemed to stuff a lot of our plays. At the same time, we got enough good ones to get through to create corner kicks.”