Bartlett completes good opening week

Coach Heather Thomas believes it has been a good opening week for the Bartlett girls soccer team.

The Hawks won their second consecutive match Saturday, beating Montini 8-0 at Millennium Field, to go 2-1 on the week.

“Yeah, I would say this has been a successful week,” Thomas said. “We’ve come out after every practice and all the things we’ve worked on, we’ve done in the games. It’s nice to see.”

Bartlett lost to Schaumburg in its opening match and beat Oswego. The busy week was in preparation for Upstate Eight Conference crossover matchups with St. Charles North on Tuesday and against St. Charles East on Thursday.

Sophomore Brittany VanNess gave the Hawks the lead against Montini (0-2) less than 2 minutes into the match. She took a cross from Nicki Noreen and beat Broncos goalkeeper Kiera Johnston for a 1-0 Bartlett lead with 38:18 left in the first half.

Kendra Videckis gave the Hawks a 2-0 lead with the first of her 3 first-half goals on a right-footed shot from 25 yards out with 22:47 remaining in the first half. Jessica Cosentina and Noreen added goals 22 seconds apart later in the first half for a 4-0 lead. Videckis added 2 goals in the final 2 minutes of the half as Bartlett took a 6-0 lead into the break.

“We were able to come out here and do what we needed to do and play hard,” Thomas said. “We opened up the field a little bit and gave ourselves some opportunities.”

Natalia Grodzki, who made 1 save in the first half, scored off an Ashley Johnson corner kick with 14:34 left in the second half to make 7-0, enforcing the mercy rule and cutting the remaining time in half. Grodzki scored again with 56 seconds remaining for the final goal.

Montini had just 3 shots on goal. Bartlett’s Amanda Lozada made 2 saves in the second half to combine with Grodzki on the shutout.

“We did not play well,” Montini coach Barry Briggs said. “That’s the bottom line.”