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Sports

Girls Soccer: New Coach, New Outlook for Foxes

Yorkville features nice mix of veteran returnees, underclassmen newcomers.

The Yorkville girls soccer team is ready for a new beginning this season.

Standout goal-scoring machine Nicole Steller has graduated and is playing at Bethel College, three freshmen and six sophomores have been added to this year's roster and new coach Michael Jacobs is committed to winning.

"We have quite a few players coming back," Jacobs said. "We graduated Nicole who was a great player, but we've also added some girls from other sports who have decided to join, so we really have the best athletes in Yorkville out there."

Yorkville struggled through a 5-15-1 campaign last spring, but the Foxes will catch a major break with the end of the Western Sun Conference which eliminates tough match-ups with bigger schools and programs like Batavia, Geneva and Glenbard South.

Instead, they'll see the familiar uniforms of DeKalb, Sycamore, Kaneland, Rochelle and Morris as well as some new ones with crossover contests in the Northern Illinois Big 12 Conference.

"It's always cool to play at other schools just to see what it's like to do it," Jacobs said. "But some of those games are going to be pretty far away so we'll have to prepare mentally for some long school nights."

Senior forward Michelle Fabricino, senior midfielder/forward Jenny Taptich, senior midfielder/forward Liz Lazacano and sophomore midfielder/forward Brittany Straznickas are the captains of this year's team.

"I don't think we have to rely on one player like last year," Frabicino said. "We have a lot of good talent this year, the captains are stepping up and there's going to be competition for playing time."

One difference already this year has come in conditioning. Stamina can be vital to a team's success and longevity in staying in close games.

"We're doing a lot more running and conditioning then we did last year, which should help us a lot," Lazacano said. "You can tell our coach wants to win and when you have a coach that wants to win that reflects on the team so we're going to have that mentality to go out and win."

Steller may have been the dominant scorer for the Foxes last year, but when you leave the field on the winning end on only five occasions then there's other aspects of the game that need improvement.

"There really is a lot of good, young women on this team and they compete well and play hard," Jacobs said. "The younger athletes already have great role models because they're all pushing each other and setting a good tone."

Freshmen forwards Alexis Sullivan, Faith Swe and Courtney Bass are three newcomers who will look to fit in right away this spring.

"They have come in and put in a lot of effort which is good to see because last year I think some people didn't put in the effort that was needed," Straznickas said. "A lot of them played in middle school and before that, so they're coming in knowing what they're doing."

The Foxes also have a better idea of how they're going to approach the many different aspects of the game.

"Last year we pretty much played wherever we wanted which wasn't a good thing," Fabricino said. "This year we have different zones and plays, and plans of what we need to do."

Other members of this year's Yorkville girls soccer team include seniors DeAnna Voss, Megan Friel, Nicki Hills, Christina Bahr, Rebecca Bahr and goalie Leslie Erb, juniors Elizabeth Kleinhanzl, Samantha Mahoney and Taylor McDermott and sophomores  Miranda Balderas, Lexie Bulliner, Alyssa Heimbach, Evelynn Mendez and Betsy Strazzante.

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