What’s old is new again for Benet senior Rachel Burns.
The fourth-year varsity player spent the past two seasons playing in the midfield, where she racked up 16 goals and 14 assists in a supporting role.
Benet coach Gerard Oconer has given Burns a change of scenery this seasons, but the results may be similar — lots of winning.
“I used to play center forward for club a few years back before I moved to center mid,” Burns said. “The last couple years I played in the midfield, but with Mariana (Pinto) going off to play her college career, I got switched back, which has been a learning curve.”
But Burns has been rounding that curve quickly and has the Redwings off and running. She had two goals and an assist on Thursday as Benet routed host Sandburg 7-0 in Orland Park.
Pinto, a freshman at Lewis, had a team-high 25 goals and 14 assists last season, when the Redwings went 22-5 record and finished second in Class 2A.
Burns is Pinto’s replacement, at least in terms of position, but her responsibilities are slightly different.
“The thing we like about Rachel at that spot is she’s so good at holding the ball and is such a good distributor from that spot,” Oconer said. “Obviously, Mariana was a pure, natural goal scorer, but in our system we need Rachel to serve a different role from Mariana.
“You can see that our attack is so much more multifaceted this year than it has been over the last couple years, where we’ve relied too much on a couple players. If you look at our goal scorers from our first two games, it could be anybody.”
Indeed, eight players have scored for the Redwings (2-0), and seven have assists. Depth and versatility have allowed players like Burns and sophomore Keira Petrucelli, who had a goal and an assist against Sandburg (0-2), to adapt seamlessly to new roles.
“We’ve got a lot of new talent, got a lot of support with Ivana (Vukas) on the right side and Anna (Casmere) on the left side,” Burns said. “Both have been contributing a lot, so I think everyone behind me has been a really great help.
“We’re really good working as a team.”
Petrucelli, who has moved from winger to attacking midfielder, scored the first goal against Sandburg and then set up Burns’ first goal, which gave Benet a 2-0 lead at the 5:17 mark of the first half.
Petrucelli raced down the right wing before crossing to Burns, who buried a 17-yard shot through a steady rain.
“Rachel has been doing a great job adjusting to that role,” Petrucelli said. “She’s doing a great job of holding the ball and retaining it and waiting for all of the midfielders to get forward, and always being in the right pocket of space.
“I’m so happy for her that she’s getting these goals and taking all these shots and helping our team so much.”
Burns isn’t hesitating to shoot. She scored her second goal with 33:40 left in the second half on a 28-yard blast against the wind that extended the lead to 4-0.
“We were kind of going against the wind, but I think it helped it because it kind of just batted the ball down,” she said. “When I originally hit it, I thought it was going to go over, but it flew right under the crossbar.”
Burns left the game a few minutes later after a defender slide-tackled her. But that won’t bring any relief to Benet opponents.
“It’s an ankle,” she said. “But I’ll be good in a few days.”
Matt Le Cren is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.