The 2011 edition of the Lisle Girls Soccer Team is about to begin. The team will be a good collection of youth and veterans. Although changes are bound to occur, the make up of the varsity squad after tryouts is 4 freshment, 4 Sophomores, 6 Juniors and 5 Seniors. There are 6 returning starters from last seasons team which took 4th in state.
We lost some very good players from last years squad, however, we have some very good incoming freshment players. And we had our biggest turn out ever, with 39 players coming out for the team. It was much tougher to make Varsity this season, which bodes well for the JV squad and for the future of the program.
Players
Seniors
Leading the squad this year, is Lisle's most prolific scorer. Nicole Urban returns for her 4th and final season.
Nicole (Capt) will add to her 101 career goals this season and will set a very high mark for future Lisle players to match.
Robin Kru joins Nicole as Co-Capt and brings 2 seasons as a starting defensive player. Lexi Britton also will be
a 4th year starter at the wing mid position. Katie O'Connell will step into a starting position after a
great job in the state tournament last season. Sami Seiffert will be on Varsity for her first time and will work as a back up forward.
Juniors
Lauren Prideville leads the Juniors as the most experienced player and will be counted on to switch from Forward to Defender. Sara Ruthberg and Michell Hutchison were back ups on last years squad and both look to get lots of playing time this season. New comers to Varsity include Alexis Hoepler (Def), Franki Parrillo (Mid), and Annie Cochran (For) rounding out the Junior class on Varsity.
Sophomores
3 of the 4 Sophomores are returning starters from last years squad. Skyler Tomko looks to improve on her impressive Freshmen season where she scored 9 goals and had 9 assists. Vanessa Roach returns to the nets for her 2nd season as the Lions starting keeper and will look to improve on her 2.06 Goals Against average. Christine Young will help anchor the defense again this season. Ashleigh Zurek rounds out the Sophormore group and will work at the defensive Center Mid spot.
Freshmen
Last year, 3 freshmen started for the Lions and it looks like that might happen again. Elena Pivek, Allison Morton, Val Melo and Sierra Birdsell lead a strong group of freshmen players on both Varsity and JV.
Lisle Invitational Tournament
The Lisle Invitational will again be played at Benedictine University on Friday Night March 25 and all day Saturday March 26th. Attending the Tournament will be Manteno (09 A State Champs and 10 State Runner up), Chicago Parker, (10 Regional winner from Chicago) and Trinity (AA level school)
Rest of the Season
The Lions will also participate in the Timothy Christian Tournament, taking the host team, Westmont and Montini High school.
The defending conference champions, Manteno will be a young team, as they lost their top two players and the conference race is wide open. Based on other coaches comments, Herscher might be the team to beat this season. Peotone, Manteno, and Lisle will all be there in the mix as well. Also, don't rule out a run by Westmont this season, as they have a very experienced squad coming back.
It looks to be a very exciting season for the Lions as they try to get back to the State finals and compete for the conference title.