Crown Point sophomore midfielder Ava Haluska was ready for the challenge, even if it was an unfamiliar role.
“Usually I’m working with the defenders, but now I’m up working with the attackers,” she said. “It’s a whole different game for me.”
Sophomore forward Izzy Sainato was ready, as well, even if she hated the circumstances that created this opportunity for her.
“I just knew that I had to step up and that I had to work for it,” she said.
Haluska and Sainato were key parts of a midseason shift in strategy for Crown Point after senior forward Zoey Wells torn the ACL in her left knee on Sept. 10.
Their embrace of those changes was an essential part of the Bulldogs’ third straight sectional title, which they won with a 2-1 victory against Chesterton in the Class 3A Portage Sectional championship game on Saturday.
Chesterton senior forward Gina Geenen put the Trojans (11-6-2) up 1-0 in the second half before Sainato tied it a few minutes later. Haluska scored the winner with two minutes left in the game, firing home a rebound off a shot by Sainato, to send Crown Point (15-4-1) into a regional semifinal against Lake Central on Thursday.
Haluska ranks second on the team with eight goals — trailing only Wells, who had 11 in eight games before her injury — and has a team-high 15 assists. Crown Point coach David Bock may never run out of different ways to compliment her game.
“She’s got magic,” Bock said. “That’s the best way I can describe it. She’s unselfish. She works hard. She’s technically creative and solid. She understands the game so well. I love everything about the way she plays.”
Haluska and junior midfielder Juliana Bozinovski were assigned a more offensive focus from their positions after Wells’ injury, something Haluska was not used to handling.
“Even for my club team, I play more defensive-minded,” she said. “But the coaches put a lot more responsibility on me with the attacking side of things, and I just knew that I had to do my best every day.”
It was a bittersweet development for Sainato, who became a starting forward in the middle of the season but only because a teammate she so admired was sidelined.
“It broke our hearts when we heard about the injury,” Sainato said.
Her playing time had dwindled as she scored just once during a 15-game stretch in August and September.
But Sainato has reemerged in the postseason. She scored two goals, including one in overtime, in a 5-3 win against Valparaiso in a sectional opener on Oct. 4. She had an assist in a 7-0 win against Hobart in the sectional semifinal.
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“It was Zoey encouraging me,” Sainato said. “She kept telling me that I just had to keep working because I had the skill and the speed. I just had to learn how to use it.”
Wells said it was merely recognizing that Sainato was falling into the same mental traps that Wells had encountered earlier in her career.
“In practice, her shot is phenomenal,” Wells said. “And then she’d come into games and only get a shot or two that wouldn’t be on frame, and then she’d just stop. But that happens to everyone. I told her that she was never going to make one if she stopped shooting altogether, so keep taking them. And it finally fell when it needed to.”
All the adjustments allowed Crown Point to win a sectional title.
“Everyone knew the feeling they wanted — this feeling,” Sainato said. “Everyone craves it, and it’s what we’ve worked for this season. This is the one we wanted to win.”
Dave Melton is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.