Wheaton North will become a force!

Wheaton North is only returning 6 varsity players.

What this means, is that they will be raising up a very young team as freshmen and sophomores come in and have the opportunity to fill in the varsity roles, playing in positions and against competition mostly reserved for juniors and seniors. The teams that have won state in the past, other than New Trier or Loyola, who have broken the their hold on the title, have each used such a strategy. Namely Barrington, who intentionally took a talented class of freshmen, and purposely played them all as varsity players, so by the time they were Juniors, they were in the State Finals, winning it their senior year.

Glenbrook South also used such a strategy, playing virtually an entire class for four years, to also make the state finals for two years, winning it as well with seniors who were four year varsity players.

Very few other programs in Illinios have been able to challenge New Trier or Loyola,

But, Wheaton North, by virtue of graduating a huge senior class, will be poised to become a force, which whlie not necessarily intended, will be well embraced by the Falcon community!

The Falcons return freshmen FOS, #15 Kaiden Libby as well as Defender, Lucas Pacer, who both played a full varsity season as Freshmen. These two will become natural leaders on the team as the ranks of talent and athleticism flow into North to fill the void left by a strong senior class.

But part of the ingredients for the development of great teams, are great players, who have extended experience, and the Falcons have a great defender in #18 Hudson Moss, returning as the sole sophomore of the varsity team this season. Moss and Pacer will anchor what is bound to become an extremely talented defense as they acquire full time the athletic stick handling of Freshman Sam Howser, who also saw time on the varsity field in 2019. Moss, Pacer and Howser could actually become legendary as they will have had three years playing together at the varsity level, which should develop an intuition and chemistry that rivals will have difficulty penetrating.

The Falcons have some extremely competitive and talented juniors returning as well who will have a sense of urgency so they can capitalize on their senior year. Thus, they will be motivated to make the young team, a great team fast, which will help the falcons all through next season mature at an excellarated rate.

Junior team leader, #4 Braden Aguiar, is one of the conference's best defensive midfielders, as well as #2 Matt Gemkow, who is one of the conference's best attackmen. These two along with Moss, will be next year's natural team leaders along with attackman #8 Nic Richardson and midfielder #11 Patrick Haney, and they will continually be helping to inspire the team to excell beyond their age.

Libby has "played up" his whole life, and so as a freshman at North in 2019 he naturally assumed a roled needed on the team in the faceoff axis. However #15 ended up ranked #25 in the nation in the number of faceoffs taken with 359 and #1 in Illinios in the number of faceoffs won with 227. This means that when it comes to ball control, the Falcons are going to be dominant over the next three years which will give them an extreme edge which is bound to only get better as they form a dominant face off team, cemented by an edgy defense.

This year the strength of the team was a powerful offense, anchored by depth at both attack and midfield, with three of the state's best attackmen being #2 Jr. Matt Gemkow, #28 Sr. Will Clemens and #17 Sr. Ben Faraday. But the Falcons, with only two returning varsity attackmen, will have to look to the JV and incoming freshmen classes to fill a gap left on the offensive side of the field.

This will only serve to make the falcons extremely strong in the future in the offensive game, as underclassmen, playing with their team's leading scorer in Gemkow, will out of necessity, have to improve quickly. Gemkow and Richardson's maturity at the attack position will generate an incubation of talent that will be felt by opponents far after these two graduate.

But while offense wins games, defense wins championships and what is forming at Wheaton North are the ingredients for a an outstanding future defensive team, with the ability to control the face off axis and the talent on offense to score when needed and necessary.

But what is also forming at North are the right ingredients to incubate a championship team, which will look to become a force in not just the Western Suburban DuKane Conference, but as contenders for a state title over the next few years. However, with the core personal, leadership and talent that is synergizing for the Falcons in 2020, don't be surprised to see a dominant force at North for many years to come.