Girls soccer: Bailey's hat trick helps Lake Zurich top Jacobs

Lake Zurich junior Lauren Bailey showed how dangerous she can be last season, scoring six of her 14 goals in three postseason games.

Bailey's ability to both score and create chances for her teammates has only gone up since then.

The talented forward had her best game of the spring Tuesday, collecting three goals and two assists to lead the Bears to a 5-0 nonconference win against Jacobs at Mel Eide Field.

Bailey gave the Bears (4-1) a 1-0 lead less than four minutes in when she connected on a curling shot from just outside the penalty area, assisted by Sawyer Klein. Jacobs senior goalie Kristen Silenzi (14 saves) made a leaping attempt, but the ball found the corner of the net cleanly.

Bailey then assisted sophomore forward Cammy Niepomnik from almost the same spot she scored her first goal from, giving Lake Zurich a 2-0 lead with 27:20 left in the first half. Ellie Wise added a goal two minutes later and the Bears led 3-0 at half.

Again, it was Bailey who found Wise for the goal.

"She's a big part of our offense and she makes our offense go," Bears coach Mike Castronova said. "Her getting that first goal set the tone for us. It gave us some confidence that we can finish. She's just so good at creating her own chances that she creates opportunities for her teammates, too.

"It's rare for someone to be able to do both. With the speed and physicality she plays with, it's fun to watch."

All the fun on Tuesday belonged to Lake Zurich, which had 14 shots on goal to Jacobs' three. Saoia Morton and Erin Bohn combined for the shutout in goal.

Lake Zurich created plenty of chances in the first half, while Jacobs (4-2) struggled to put passes together on the rain-soaked turf, which created a lot of slick balls. The game originally was scheduled to be played at Jacobs, but poor field conditions relocated the game.

Jacobs arrived a little late and had only 15 minutes to get ready.

"We were having a real hard time finding each other's feet," said Jacobs senior forward Delaney Roimiser, who leads the Eagles with seven goals. "We couldn't get settled and find each other. We just weren't clicking today. We just had an off-vibe."

Jacobs coach Colin Brice felt the Bears did a nice job of taking advantage of their strengths.

"They did a phenomenal job defensively against our strikers, and we just lacked movement up top," Brice said. "[Lake Zurich] is very dynamic. They like to find their wing players, and their wing players broke us down fairly easily. Our girls just didn't have it today. Part of that is you just have to make sure training is a little bit tougher. It's good to match up against an opponent like Lake Zurich because they are so skillful."

Bailey scored her second goal less than two minutes into the second half off a corner kick from Riley Irvin. Her third goal came with 15:37 remaining, assisted by Izzy Wright.

Bailey said the Bears had a good warmup, despite the heavy rains and winds at the start of the game, which helped them get going early.

"It all started with our warmup," said Bailey, who now has eight goals and seven assists on the season. "We were playing through balls and switching the field a lot, which really helped our offense. I couldn't have done it without my teammates. They helped me score every goal."

Bailey said she hopes the Bears can compete with teams normally at the top of North Suburban Conference. Lake Zurich finished 13-7-1 last year and won a Class 3A regional title.

"We won the regional and fell short of the sectional, but that's definitely our goal this year," Bailey said. "We want to beat Libertyville, Warren and Stevenson, which are the big three in our conference. We're just going to go out as strong as we can and hopefully we come out on the right side."