Keeping time with Boswell's talented feet
One of the first and most popular soccer drills a new player will learn is called "tick-tock."
It teaches ball control as a player places a ball between their legs and knocks it back and forth among their feet like the tick-tock of a clock.
Naperville North senior Abbie Boswell turned the drill into her primary way of scoring as she became the all-time scoring leader in Huskies history, notching her 85th goal in May, surpassing the 84 that Aileen Guiney established in 1999.
Boswell scored 23 times this spring and also chipped in with 9 assists, helping the Huskies to a 17-3-0 record. For leading them to another successful season, which included the Naperville Invitational title and the Class 3A Lockport regional championship, she is the captain of the 2015 Daily Herald DuPage County All-Area girls soccer team.
"The thing that was most different this year is that we were able to have a couple other kids score in double figures to go along with Boz because she knew when to make a pass," Huskies coach Steve Goletz said. "This year she was as complete of a player that I saw through the entire state. Some girls score more goals and have more assists, but she really carried us."
She even did something that she had never done before - score on a header. It proved to be the difference in a 2-1 win against Naperville Central on April 28. All of her other goals this season, as well as in the past three years, came the more traditional way, and often by way of tick-tock.
Counting the seconds
"I just started doing it when I was very little. It was something I loved to do so it just became a habit," Boswell said. "It seemed to work all the time so I just kept on doing it. It's crazy that something so simple can make you so successful and sometimes I go left and sometimes I go right, you just never know."
Boswell's father, Malcolm, an Englishman, played soccer and also coached Boswell throughout her youth. He didn't wait long to introduce her to kicking a round object, getting her first started with a balloon.
"My dad is crazy, but I would not be nearly as good as a player as I am if not for him," she said. "When I was a baby he taught me how to kick by using a balloon because I was too little to use a soccer ball. He's taught me everything since I was little."
She may have appeared to be a little freshman when she started at Naperville North in the fall of 2011, but it didn't take her long to prove she could score big goals.
She helped the Huskies win a pair of Class 3A titles as an underclassman. She had 12 goals and 12 assists as a freshman and then a huge sophomore season with 28 goals, including a goal against Buffalo Grove in the state semifinals, as well as 11 assists.
"Obviously, as a freshman she was a super-talented player who always had that natural scoring mentality," Goletz said. "Not many girls come in with the confidence to go at people 1v1 and generate as many shots as possible, so that was eye-opening to our coaching staff."
Playing alongside Zoe Swift (Kentucky) those first two years helped shape Boswell into the well-rounded offensive player she ultimately became.
"As a coach I had to wonder what she was going to be like when Zoe was no longer there and all the pressure, all the eyes, are on her," Goletz said. "She showed the most growth there, and you saw it this season. She maintained that ability to score but also could hold the ball under pressure and draw double-teams and make a pass."
She also showed that growth despite having to really battle adversity her junior season. Off-season knee surgery after her sophomore year required extensive rehabilitation, and it took a while to get back to her old form. Still, she scored 17 goals.
"That was tough because my fitness level wasn't good and I wasn't as fast," Boswell said. "This year I was a little faster and it didn't hurt anymore, which was great."
Facing Boswell
One of the Huskies' biggest rivals the past four seasons has been Neuqua Valley. It was the Wildcats who ended Boswell's senior season with a 3-2 win in the Class 3A Metea Valley sectional semifinals this year, but it was the Huskies who ended Neuqua Valley's season the prior three years. The Huskies are 7-2 since 2012 against the Wildcats, whose coach, Joe Moreau, has watched Boswell get better and better.
"Abbie is such a strong player physically and mentally. She is the player you have had to focus on when you played against North over the last couple of seasons," Moreau said. "She has grown tremendously as a player - from someone who could only use her powerful left foot to a player that used her right foot as a dangerous weapon. She went from only being a goal scorer to someone that could set up a teammate with a beautiful pass."
As ruthless as Boswell was to opposing defenders and keepers, she was sidesplittingly funny to her teammates. Watching from the bleachers, one wouldn't know that Boswell's attitude was always positive and light-hearted in the sense that she wouldn't let the pressure of a big game get to her. She also knew her teammates fed off their scoring leader, so if they saw her relaxed, they likely would feel the same way.
"I mean, I've always been pretty much super-chill about stuff," she said. "I'm very calm when I'm playing soccer. I don't know how to describe it. I don't get super-nervous. I'm in a state of calmness."
Junior midfielder Maddie Krejci said Boswell "is as goofy as she is talented."
"She knows when it's the right time to mess around and when it's time to focus," Krejci said. "She's hilarious and can make everyone laugh. Even when we lost to Neuqua Valley she was laughing and calling all the girls 'crybabies.' She just had a great personality and brought so much more to the team than what she did on the field."
Boswell also played tennis and was in the choir at Naperville North, but her biggest love was soccer.
"Honestly, soccer is my favorite thing about high school," she said. "You have your 20 best friends and your whole team there, and Goletz is an amazing coach. It was my favorite part of high school. A great experience."
Boswell will move on to Ball State where she hopes to score more goals.
Ultimately though, she hopes to score Top 10 hits in the music charts.
"I would love to be a singer, whether opera or in a band or a soul singer by myself," she said. "It's one of my dreams of how to make a living, but I know it's going to be hard. I really want to do something in music, though."