{"id":128628,"date":"2025-09-08T10:52:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T10:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/128628\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T10:52:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T10:52:11","slug":"womens-pro-soccer-achieves-lakefront-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/128628\/","title":{"rendered":"Women’s pro soccer achieves Lakefront goals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here are the most important numbers from the Sunday debut of the National Women\u2019s Soccer League at Martin Stadium on the Northwestern University campus:<\/p>\n

\"\"Credit: Jeff Hirsh<\/p>\n

The first numbers: Chicago Stars 5, Orlando Pride 2.<\/p>\n

The second set of numbers is probably more significant.<\/p>\n

\"\"Credit: Jeff Hirsh<\/p>\n

Total attendance, 10, 127 \u2026 not too far from the 12,000 seat capacity of the temporary stadium next to Lake Michigan \u2026 and more than triple the average Stars\u2019 crowd at their current home at Seat Geek Stadium in south suburban Bridgeview.<\/p>\n

The Stars are moving to Martin Stadium for the entire 2026 season. The Sunday contest against Orlando, billed as the Wintrust (sponsor) Lakefront Faceoff, was in the 2025 campaign.<\/p>\n

The Martin Stadium crowd saw lots of faces that the Stars hope to attract next year \u2014 families with children, plus teenage girls and young women. The prime women\u2019s soccer demographic.<\/p>\n

Camila and Sophia Diaz, and their parents, live near the Stars\u2019 current home, but drove an hour to check out the game and the facilities in Evanston.<\/p>\n

\"\"Camila (age 19) and Sophia (age 15). Credit: Jeff Hirsh<\/p>\n

The Diaz family are Stars season ticket holders, and are deciding whether the one-hour drive would be worth it next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really nice,\u201d said Sophia. <\/p>\n

\u201cI like the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camila noted the same thing that Stars management was seeing \u2014 the lakeside environment and ease of Evanston access was \u201cbringing in more people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Stars players noticed it as well.<\/p>\n

For example, Julia Grosso and Jameese Joseph, both of whom scored goals, said the atmosphere was awesome.<\/p>\n

Grosso, who said the new stadium was the impetus for win, cited the \u201ccool, good vibes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Julia Grosso (L) & Jameese Joseph. Credit: Jeff Hirsh<\/p>\n

Joseph added it was great to play in a place which \u201cfeels packed,\u201d instead of in front of thousands of empty seats.<\/p>\n

This has not been a great season on the pitch (that\u2019s the soccer field, not an inside curveball).<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s victory was only the Stars\u2019 second this season.<\/p>\n

\"\"Credit: Jeff Hirsh<\/p>\n

But besides winning the match, the team also won big at the gate.<\/p>\n

\"\"Credit: Jeff Hirsh<\/p>\n

However, while 2026 is a \u201cgo\u201d for Evanston \u2026 and the Stars were busy selling season tickets, 2027 remains up in the air.<\/p>\n

Northwestern has said that the temporary stadium will come down after the Stars 2026 season. By then, the Wildcats football team will have moved to the new Ryan Field, and the Lakefront site will return to a much smaller capacity for Northwestern soccer and lacrosse.<\/p>\n

At least, that\u2019s the Lakefront plan now.<\/p>\n

\"\"Police Chief Schenita Stewart and City Mgr. Luke Stowe at Sunday\u2019s game. Stewart was a star athlete at ETHS (basketball). Credit: Jeff Hirsh<\/p>\n

City Manager Luke Stowe, a soccer player in his youth, and a soccer dad as well (\u201cMy daughter would have been here but had a soccer match of her own\u201d, said the city is \u201cexcited to play a part in helping grow women\u2019s soccer in Chicago and especially in the Northern suburbs.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for beyond next season, Stowe said that would come down to if the Stars and NU want to somehow find a way to keep the team at Northwestern.<\/p>\n

But 2027 seems a long way off.<\/p>\n

\"\"Stars mascot \u201cSupernova\u201d joined by (L-R) Charlie Quancard and Harrision & Hazel Russell. Credit: Jeff Hirsh<\/p>\n

The focus now, at least for professional women\u2019s soccer in Evanston, is on 2026.<\/p>\n

The focus is also on fans like Tom and Sunny Russell, and their children, 7-year old Hazel, and 10-year-old Harrison. The Russells were joined by their fellow Winnetka residents, Christophe Quancard and his 10-year-old son Charlie.<\/p>\n

The kids play soccer, and Winnetka is not a very far drive \u2026 so maybe they\u2019ll all be back to Evanston next season.<\/p>\n

All three youngsters were wearing Stars shirts which said \u201cFuture Stars\u201d on the back.<\/p>\n

\"\"Credit: Jeff Hirsh<\/p>\n

But as Sunny Russell said, \u201cthey\u2019re real stars now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here are the most important numbers from the Sunday debut of the National Women\u2019s Soccer League at Martin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-128628","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}