NAPERVILLE – Barrington forward Sarah Sarnowski was eager for the 2024 season to begin.

“We’re very excited,” Sarnowski said. “We’re just ready to start a fresh season, no expectations, and just work has hard as we can.

“We’re a super hard-working group, so I’m excited to see where this season goes.”

Sarnowski may not have any expectations, at least not yet, but everyone else in the high school soccer world knows where the Fillies may end up. Barrington coach Ryan Stengren is rarely at a loss to find flaws in his team’s game but the Fillies have made the Class 3A state championship match in each of the past two seasons and five of the last six.

Judging by their performance in Monday night’s season opener, it would be unwise to bet against another trip to the final.

Sarnowski and Roos VanRoekel each had a goal and an assist and Annie Tarpey also found the back of the net to boost the Fillies, who are ranked third in the season-opening First 50 poll, to a 3-0 victory over host and no. 4 Naperville North.

“Nobody is ever surprised when Barrington ends up in a state championship,” Naperville North coach Steve Goletz said. “That team is about as good of a team as I’ve seen Ryan have.

“You’ve got kids out there that I know are special players. We’ve got some great kids. We had a lot of kids tonight get their first varsity minutes, which is fantastic.

“It’s really getting thrown into the fire big time when you’re playing against a team like Barrington. I have so much respect for Ryan and how they play.”

The Huskies battled hard and kept the game scoreless for nearly 30 minutes until surrendering a set piece goal. Sarnowski sent a corner kick in from the right side that found the head of VanRoekel.

VanRoekel headed the ball in front of the right post to Tarpey, who slid a shot in between Naperville North goalkeeper Olivia Ochsner and the standard for a 1-0 lead.

It stayed that way until Sarnowski made a great individual play to double the lead at the 27:24 mark of the second half. She got the ball in the midfield, raced up the middle and ripped a 35-yard shot inside the right post.

“We knew what we can control with our work-rate, so I feel like as a team we just put everything out there that we could,” said Sarnowski, who was a Chicagoland Soccer All-Stater last season along with fellow forward Piper Lucier and keeper Megan Holland. “We worked hard for the result, especially against a really good opponent.

“Everybody worked really hard, so I’m just proud of the team.”

Naperville North’s lone returning all-stater Claire Cook started at forward.

Sarnowski was impressed by tall and rugged VanRoekel, the Dutch-born, Loyola-bound senior defender who could prove to be a game-changer for the Fillies. 

“She’s awesome,” Sarnowski said. “Roos is just an extremely hard worker.

“I’m so lucky to have her as a teammate. She works hard on and off the field. She has a great personality, and I think she’s just a great teammate. I’m proud of her because everything she gets, she deserves.”

In addition to controlling the box, VanRoekel could have had a hat-trick. Her booming 53-yard free kick in the final minute of the first half was caught by Ochsner, while a 36-yard free kick try sailed high with 18:35 left in the second half.

In between those shots, however, came the shot of the game. The Fillies were awarded a free kick from about 25 yards on the left side of the penalty area, and VanRoekel placed it perfectly into the far-side inside netting to cap the scoring with 20:22 to go.

“I was aiming for the far post so somebody could run on it,” VanRoekel said. “I was lucky to hit it right, I guess.”

There was nothing lucky about Barrington’s victory, though.

“We worked hard on it,” VanRoekel said. “As a team, we worked as hard as we could go. I’m not sure if we expected anything of this game. I’m happy with the result.”

So was Stengren, to a point.

“We worked hard, we defended, but it’s a first game,” Stengren said. “Both teams are going to get better as the season goes.

“There’s a lot of errors I saw here tonight, and I’m frustrated. But we got a lot of new kids playing time, and that was good to see too. We have some decent speed on this team, and we use it. We will be hard to play against.

“But we’ve got a long way to go to maximize who we are yet. There is a lot of room for growth.”

The same can be said for the Huskies, who mustered only six shots and failed to solve Barrington goalkeeper Holland, who made four saves and cut off a few other dangerous balls.

But Holland does that to a lot of teams.

“If that’s not the best goalkeeper I’ve seen in a long time, I’m not sure who is,” Goletz said. “She’s an absolutely fantastic goalkeeper.

“She’s athletic. She’s big; she reads the game well. She eliminates so much, even on through-balls. She’s confident off her line.

“We were maybe a touch or a combination away. When you’ve got to be perfect, it’s hard, especially in the first game of the year.

“And to beat a team like Barrington you have to be perfect. You’ve got to get a couple of breaks. Unfortunately, tonight we didn’t, but I’m super happy with how they played.”

That was especially true of Naperville North’s defense of Abby Penn, Addison Sitzmann, Reagan O’Malley and Emily Buescher, which held Barrington’s Lucier without a shot and the Fillies to a manageable 10, none of which were breakaways.

“I thought our entire backline was fantastic,” Goletz said. “It’s funny to say that when you give up three goals.

“As I told the girls, they didn’t get in behind us one time tonight. I think we can do a better job at times of keeping it under pressure, but I thought our kids competed all night.”

At this early stage of the season, that’s the most important takeaway.

“We play this game every year for Game 1 because it’s going to highlight what we’ve got to get better at,” Goletz said. “I think we were a little bit unlucky at times tonight with the score being 3-0.

“I don’t feel like it was truly a 3-0 game. We’ll continue to build and get better. As I always say, the schedule is set up this way so that when it really matters, we’re playing our best soccer.”

 
Starting lineups

Barrington
GK: Megan Holland
D: Hannah Blue
D: Roos VanRoekel
D: Aybree Sanchez
D: Grace Fuller
M: Chloe Gierthy
M: Madeline Lewis
M: Annie Tarpey
M: Gabby Masterson
F: Piper Lucier
F: Sarah Sarnowski
 
Naperville North
GK: Olivia Ochsner
D: Abby Penn
D: Addison Sitzmann
D: Reagan O’Malley
D: Emily Buescher
M: Audrey Hartmann
M: Isa Polavieja
M: Jacey Sturek
F: Annie Chang
F: Rachael Noren
F: Claire DeCook
 
Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match: Sarah Sarnowski, sr., F, Barrington.

 
Scoring summary

First half
Barrington: Annie Tarpey (Roos VanRoekel, Sarah Sarnowski), 28’
 
Second half
Barrington: Sarnowski (unassisted), 53’
Barrington: VanRoekel (free kick), 60’