The numbers are important to Crown Point junior forward Hannah Pesich.
When Bulldogs coach David Bock said Pesich scored “twenty-plus” goals as a freshman on the junior varsity team, she interjected.
“Twenty-one,” she said.
That exchange offers a window into the goal-scoring mentality that drives Pesich, who has nine goals to pace Duneland Athletic Conference co-leader Crown Point (8-2, 4-0) this season. She scored a team-high 12 in her varsity debut last year, when the Bulldogs were Class 3A semistate runners-up.
Pesich correctly noted those totals just as quickly as she clarified Bock’s ballpark figure.
“I’ve always cared about the numbers,” she said.
Bock knows why.
“It’s because she’s competitive,” he said. “She wants to be great.”
But Pesich said she takes the most pride in being a player whom teammates can rely upon in key moments.
“I just remember feeling happy that I could prove myself to the seniors and to my coaches,” she said.
Bock said Pesich has consistently delivered in Crown Point’s most important games. She scored the only goal in the Bulldogs’ win against Chesterton in the Class 3A sectional semifinals last season, recorded a goal and two assists in the sectional championship game against Valparaiso and provided the first goal against Lake Central in the regional semifinals.
“When it mattered in the postseason, she was the one who delivered,” Bock said.
He said Pesich can score so many timely goals because she refuses to give up on plays.
“It always seems like she’s keeping a play alive and then something happens off of that, especially in big games,” Bock said. “Even though she’s skilled, she’s also very scrappy. She’s pretty relentless.”
If not for classmate Sam Quick, however, Pesich might still be trying to prevent goals instead of scoring them.
Quick and Pesich established themselves as the top two goalkeepers on a recreational team earlier in their careers, but Pesich was hoping for a position switch when the more competitive club season arrived. So she talked Quick into joining her on the club team.
“In our rec league, everyone played goalie because it was fun and different,” Pesich said. “During club, we were the two who were stuck with it. So I brought Sam to club and made her be the goalie so I could play forward.”
As Quick recalls, she expected their platoon in net would continue during the club season. But she soon learned that wasn’t going to be the case.
“She told me that I’d play one half and she’d play one half,” Quick said with a laugh. “And I said, ‘Deal,’ so that I could keep being a field player. But she left me in the dust, and I was forced to play both halves. It’s been like that ever since.”
It worked out for both of them. Quick is the starting goalkeeper for the Bulldogs, who have not allowed a goal in their past seven games.
Pesich certainly has no complaints.
“I was happy with it — a lot happier than I was playing keeper,” she said. “It was a more natural fit.”
But Pesich is nowhere near content with her current goal total.
“I just want to be better than I was last season,” she said.
Bock said he believes Pesich — and the entire team — are capable of that.
“We’re happy with where we’re at,” he said. “But we’re always pushing for more. As much as we did last year, we were just talking last night that we’re setting goals to be even better than we were in the year before.”
Dave Melton is a freelance reporter.
