Trailing by two goals at halftime of Monday’s home contest with Herscher, Bradley-Bourbonnais forward Harper Tollefson said the Boilermakers took a little time to reset.

“I think we were all on the same page, and once we started playing again, we were all passing through and got a quick goal early in the half,” she said. “Then I was like, ‘We’re putting this together right now and we’re going to come back.’ ”

Lily Argyelan’s goal just 51 seconds into the second half was followed nine minutes later by a tying goal from Tollefson, who already had a first-half goal under her belt.

Then with 18:32 to play, Tollefson finished off a nice pass from Nia Lawrence to secure her a hat trick and give the Boilermakers a 4-3 comeback win over the Tigers.

“I saw the little corner [of the net] and knew I had to hit it,” Tollefson said. “If I would’ve let it keep going I would’ve had to pull it back and they’d be on me. So it was just one touch, bottom corner, right there.”

That goal was the 15th of the season for the sophomore Tollefson, already clearing her team-leading tally of 12 from her freshman season.

Herscher had a couple solid chances to tie things up, with Sophie Venckauskas barely missing a hat trick of her own when her attempted equalizer glanced off the post with 1:20 to go, but the Boilermakers (3-3-1) held on down the stretch.

They held the Tigers (7-1) scoreless for the final 56 minutes of the game, and helping anchor that defensive effort was senior Marti Grizzle, who has been splitting time at goalkeeper this season with junior Kali Andrews-Earling.

Grizzle was in net in the first half, with Herscher’s talented seniors Venckauskas (two goals, one assist) and Gianni Jaime (one goal, one assist) able to send a few through.

She slid up to the back line in the second half and helped to turn away several of the Tigers’ scoring chances, with Andrews-Earling also steering one wide on an aggressive closeout with about 10 minutes to go.

Both are playing in net for the first time, and Grizzle said the process of learning a new position has been a challenging but rewarding one for her and Andrews-Earling.

“It’s tons of new experiences, learning new strategies,” she said. “It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be when learning this position. Last year I’d be like, ‘Oh, it doesn’t look to hard. They just have to catch a ball.’ But it is a lot of work, and I never really understood that until I had to go through that and step up.”

The Boilermaker defense held the high-scoring Tigers to less than half of their early-season scoring average on Monday and picked up their second shutout of the season in an 8-0 win over Coal City on April 1.

Head coach Kristen Powell said the work her two new keepers have been putting in, with help from assistant and boys varsity head coach Andy Stembridge, has been a great development in the early going.

“This team is willing to do what it takes, and it’s showing,” she said. “Coach Stembridge is an excellent goalkeeper coach and he’s teaching them what they need to know, but it’s all their attitude toward stepping on the field and willingness to work really hard on a really hard position.”

For Herscher, Jaime’s assist was the 83rd of her career, extending her own program record she broke in an 8-0 win over Bishop McNamara on March 30. She, Venckauskas and Gianna High all had over 30 points on the season heading into Monday’s game.

The loss came two days after a 2-0 win over a shorthanded but still-dangerous Class 2A Champaign Centennial team.

Another battle against the Class 3A Boilermakers Monday has head coach Christopher Longtin, who picked up his 250th win on Thursday against Reed-Custer, feeling good about his 1A Tigers during a tough stretch of the schedule.

“This is kind of our week of seeing good competition,” he said. “[Bradley-Bourbonnais] is definitely good competition, and we’ll see [2A] Sacred Heart-Griffin Friday in Urbana and that’ll definitely be some good competition. I told the girls out on the field, this is why we play these teams. That’s the caliber we are.”

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Girls Soccer: Bradley-Bourbonnais vs. Herscher Bradley-Bourbonnais' Lilly Argyelan leaps in celebration of her goal with teammates during the Boilermakers' 4-3 victory over Herscher on Monday, April 6, 2026. (Tiffany Blanchette)