Waubonsie Valley junior Bri Rodriguez shows amazing skills

All it takes is a few testimonial quotes from her teammates to paint the picture of what Waubonsie Valley's Bri Rodriguez does best on a soccer field.

"She takes care of the ball and never gets nervous with it," Vanessa DiBernardo said.

"She controls the flow of the game," Claire Hanold said.

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"When you make a run, you know she's going to get it to you," Kiki McClellan said. "She always knows how fast you're running, exactly where the ball needs to be, and she has the ability to put it there."

"She makes us all look good on the field," Rachel Bostick said. "It all goes through her."

It is Bostick who offers the story that best illustrates what it is that makes Rodriguez -- the captain of the Daily Herald all-area team in girls soccer for the second consecutive year -- the player that she is.

Bostick stands nearly a foot taller than the 5-foot-2 Rodriguez, but two seasons ago the two squared off in a shielding drill in practice, aimed at getting incoming freshmen acclimated to the physical play they would experience at the varsity level.

At the end of the drill, whoever had the ball when a coach's whistle was blown was declared the winner. Bostick had to shield Rodriguez from the ball and as the drill went on, more and more physical play was allowed to occur.

"At the end she was kicking like crazy, so I pinned her down on the ground," Bostick said. "She was biting me and scratching me, trying to get me up."

"I think I was winning until she threw me down and sat on me," Rodriguez said. "My arms were pinned, so I bit her on the arm. It was the only thing I could do to get the ball."

'I hate to lose'

The two juniors laugh about it, but that story hints at the competitive drive that Rodriguez carries around no matter what the game is. On a defending state champion team with no shortage of fiery players, Rodriguez may be the fieriest.

"It's a combination of wanting to win and not wanting to lose," Rodriguez said. "I hate to lose. Being the youngest of five kids, I always had that."

Rodriguez's hatred has been kept in check for two unbeaten high school seasons and 55 consecutive games through the Warriors' 1-0 win over St. Charles North on Monday, in a Class AA supersectional game that sent them back downstate. Rodriguez had the assist on a goal by DiBernardo.

After going 30-0-1 last year in winning the first team state title in school history, the Warriors take a 23-0-1 record into today's state quarterfinal game against Maine South at North Central College in Naperville.

There's simply no better player over a soccer ball in Illinois than Rodriguez, who will take a premier combination of foot skills, quickness, strength and tremendous distribution skills to West Virginia, where she verbally committed to play college soccer in the fall of 2009.

With the feet of a jackrabbit and hips like a gyroscope, Rodriguez can be a blur just standing over a soccer ball, but just as impressive is her willingness to work to get open in the face of constant defensive attention.

"Somehow, she's always open," McClellan said. "Whenever you need someone to pass to, she's always there."

Rodriguez is often open thanks largely to that competitive little demon that lives on her shoulder, always screeching in her ear to work a little harder.

"You don't realize how hard her job is on the field," Hanold said. "But she always shows up with some amazing play, and it's just fun to watch her."

"I'm going to get the ball. I'm going to go to it," Rodriguez said. "It's funny -- during games I've heard kids that are marking me yell to their coach, 'Coach, she keeps moving!' You can be skilled, but you have to have that work ethic, too."

If you're a fan of one-touch, quick-pass, unselfish-to-a-fault soccer, with players relentlessly making runs and looking to combine with each other, you won't find an attack that's more fun to watch than Waubonsie Valley's.

DiBernardo, Rodriguez, Bostick, Jessica Blake and Megan Green have each scored 10 goals apiece or more for a program that has outscored its opponents 216-14 in 55 games over the past two seasons.

Point producer

As the engine that drives the Warriors' attack, Rodriguez posted 17 goals and 23 assists last year and 13 goals and 25 assists this year, for a total of 108 points.

So where statistics are concerned, try this one on for size: Over the past two years, Rodriguez has contributed roughly the equivalent of one goal in every game she has played in a high school uniform.

That uniform could have been a club soccer uniform this year, as Rodriguez annually faces the choice of opting out of the high school game to play with her club team instead. But as she said earlier this year, "I love my team, I love my coach, and I love playing for my school." The choice to return to play for Waubonsie this year also resulted in Rodriguez being named Illinois' Gatorade Player of the Year.

More than any other player in coach Julie Bergstrom's current and past crop of top-caliber players, "Bri put Waubonsie Valley soccer on the map," Bergstrom said.

"She has that edge to her, that 'I want to win' mentality. And one sign of a really good player is that they make their teammates better, and she has always done that with her passing."

Her natural desire is to set up teammates, but when need be Rodriguez can do it with her scoring, too. She scored the game-winner in a 1-0 win over St. Charles North during the regular season, after team scoring leader DiBernardo left the game with an injury.

Bostick again hearkened back to two years ago in naming another play that defines Rodriguez, which occurred during a game in Lemont Cup play. With Waubonsie struggling to score in a game marked by horrible, windy weather and time running down, Rodriguez answered the bell.

"Nothing we could do could put the ball in the net, and with 30 seconds left we're freaking out a little," Bostick said. "Bri did her thing and put the ball in the back of the net.

"It just showed what kind of player she is. She'll fight and do whatever she has to do to win. If we need anything, Bri is going to work her butt off to get it for us."