Three quick goals lead Bartlett

Updated: May 4, 2011 11:20PM

There was a time not too long ago when Bartlett couldn’t buy a goal.

But the Hawks have been unstoppable lately. After scoring just one goal during a seven-game stretch, Bartlett has 10 in its last three matches, all victories.

The Hawks (9-5-3) tallied three goals in a span of 7:16 in the first half Wednesday night and hung on to beat West Chicago 3-2 in the West Chicago Invitational.

“We’re finally picking it up,” said Bartlett forward Nicole Gobbo, who had a goal and two assists. “We changed up our lineup a little bit, so now we have Nicki Noreen up top with me and it’s working really well because now we have a lot of speed up top. We’re working a lot better together and it’s helping our whole team.”

Gobbo, a Northern Illinois recruit who has 13 goals, set up Noreen to open the scoring at the 23:01 mark of the first half. Gobbo’s pass from the midfield split a pair of defenders and sprung Noreen on a breakaway that resulted in a 15-yard finish.

The Hawks made it 2-0 with 17:07 left when defender Lisa Palmer scored her second goal of the season by heading home a Gobbo corner kick. The deluge continued 82 seconds later as Gobbo raced 50 yards up the middle through three West Chicago defenders before sending a 17-yard shot past charging Wildcats goalie Cat Canestrelli.

“Having two quick girls up front helps,” Bartlett coach Heather Thomas said. “I think that there’s a little bit of a cohesiveness going on up top [and] that Nicole and Nicki are working well together right now. Hopefully it continues.”

Bartlett extended its winning streak to three games, but not before West Chicago (8-6-3) made the Hawks sweat.

Jessica Quinn scored off an assist from Hannah Spriggs with 2:04 left before intermission and the Wildcats pulled within 3-2 with 24:47 remaining in the second half on a short corner kick in which Meagan Radloff tapped the ball to Bianca Navejas, who made a great move to elude a defender on the end line.

Navejas slid a pass in traffic to sophomore Andie Lazzerini, who quickly poked a short shot past Bartlett keeper Natalia Grodzki and just inside the right post for her eighth goal of the season.

“We’ve been practicing that one a lot at practice and it was a great move by Bianca and I was just there at the right place, right time to finish and put it in the back of the net,” Lazzerini said. “We really wanted to win that game. We were kind of slacking in the first half and then in the second half we came to play. The past couple games we’ve been kind of off our game but we came back in the second half which was nice.”

But it wasn’t enough to prevent the Wildcats from losing their third straight game. Palmer played a big role in that, repeatedly stopping the dangerous Radloff on one-on-one situations and not allowing West Chicago to get a shot off in the final 20 minutes.

“I played on a travel team with her all through elementary school and middle school, so I know she’s really good at possessing the ball and cutting, so I just tried staying with her,” Palmer said. “I think I did good. I tried not to stab at the ball. I just tried to contain her as best I could.”

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