If Liam Bazin isn’t all the way back, he’s pretty darn close.

Crown Point coach Mike Bazin’s son hadn’t played soccer in nearly two years, opting to concentrate on basketball instead. But Liam Bazin, a freshman forward, has helped the Bulldogs win their first sectional title since 2017 in his return to the sport.

“I came in really expecting nothing,” Liam Bazin said. “I haven’t played in two years. I was just working out the kinks when I came back.

“I’ve worked very hard, and I’m always going to give my best effort, including practices. I’ve been able to reacclimate very well.”

Indeed, the 6-foot-2 Liam Bazin has scored a team-high 14 goals and also has five assists for Crown Point (11-5-3), which will play a Class 3A regional semifinal at Lake Central (13-4-1) on Wednesday.  Those two teams shared the Duneland Athletic Conference title with Chesterton.

Liam Bazin began playing soccer when he was 4 years old, lining up primarily as a central midfielder or central defender, and was coached by Mike Bazin most of the time until he made the jump to travel ball.

But before this season, Liam Bazin last played soccer in the fall of 2023. The following spring, he decided basketball was the way he wanted to go.

Mike Bazin, a former standout goalkeeper for Valparaiso who is in his 14th season as Crown Point’s coach after four seasons as an assistant, was on board with that decision.

“He’s always split time between soccer and basketball,” Mike Bazin said. “It was about a year and a half ago. We were getting ready for a spring season. He was gone every weekend with basketball or soccer, and he was just like, ‘I think I just want to focus on basketball right now.’

“I completely accepted it. I was like, ‘Whatever you want to do. Whatever makes you happy.’ I said, ‘If you ever want to play for the high school, we’ll absolutely work something out.’”

That moment arrived this season.

“This year around tryouts for the team, I started coming to practices, and I really realized I’m still good and I still love the game,” Liam Bazin said. “I decided, why not? Why not play?”

Mike Bazin recalled cuts had just been made to set the team.

“He came out to a practice one time, he grabs his cleats, hops in, and that really lit a fire under him, like, ‘I can still do this,’” Mike Bazin said. “All the kids were like, ‘Bro, why aren’t you playing? Why aren’t you playing right now?’ He was like, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’ On the way back, he was like, ‘Dad, I think I want to play.’

“Another thing that made it work out well, we needed a goal scorer this year. He was very confident he could fill in and be that striker. But he’s a very versatile player. Growing up, he had always played a center mid position or a center back position. He’s a good combination of having the vision to pass, and throughout the season we’ve been working on just quality finishes, or smart finishes, on the ball. Sometimes you put a kid in front of the goal and they’re going to try to do something fancy or try to hit it upper 90. But there’s easy ways to score.”

Freshman forward Liam Bazin has a team-high 14 goals and five assists for sectional champion Crown Point. (Michael Osipoff / Post-Tribune)

After completing the requisite practices, Liam Bazin made his debut in the Bulldogs’ season opener against West Lafayette Harrison. Goals didn’t come easily for him at the outset, when he mostly played midfielder.

“He missed two shots against Harrison, especially in the first half, that I feel like if that happened later on in the season, he’s putting them in,” Mike Bazin said. “So it’s taken a while for him to get back into playing again, the touch, the vision.

“He’s still not playing the best he can, but he’s just an athlete. He’s been rocking it this year.”

The goals began to flow for Liam Bazin, including in big games. He scored in the Bulldogs’ 2-1 conference loss to Lake Central on Aug. 27 and in their 3-0 conference win against Chesterton on Sept. 17. He netted a hat trick in a sectional opener against Lowell, scored in the semifinals against Portage and scored twice in the final against Hobart.

In basketball, Liam Bazin, a guard/forward, said he believes he’ll likely play on Crown Point’s junior varsity team, with “the goal to be on the 12-man roster at the end of the year for sectionals.” It could be a special season for the boys basketball team, which has won back-to-back regional titles, reached a semistate final last season and has the potential to accomplish even more.

Crown Point senior midfielder Brayden Kurtz, the Post-Tribune player of the year in 2024, has meshed well with Bazin. At the start of this season, Kurtz was playing academy ball in Florida but came back to Crown Point in early September and made his season debut against Chesterton. Bazin’s full-time move to forward was spurred by the return of Kurtz, who is not expected to play Wednesday after suffering an ankle injury in the sectional final against Hobart.

“This really isn’t his main sport,” Kurtz said. “It was back in the day, but it’s basketball now. That’s probably helped because he’s really out here having fun. He’s not thinking about anything else, and he’s putting the ball in the back of the net. It’s really important to have a guy with no ego, just out here having fun and really a light to the team. He’s just been able to do his job and do his part.

“It’s been really helpful to know I can do stuff in the midfield and trust him and pass the ball and I know he’s going to finish.”

The Bulldogs finished the job of winning a sectional title after several near-misses along the way. Their sectional title in 2017 was their seventh straight and followed state championships in 2011, when Mike Bazin was an assistant, and in 2013.

Liam Bazin is the oldest of four children — he has a brother and two sisters — and is the only one who plays soccer.

“He’s my one opportunity to coach my child,” Mike Bazin said with a laugh.

He also said, “I love coaching. I’ve always stuck around as long as I have hoping that he would play. He’s absolutely made me a very proud father this season.”

Liam Bazin also relishes the experience.

“I’m able to separate the dad and the coach dynamic,” he said. “He’s hard on me, but it’s all out of love. He treats me the same as any other player. I enjoy having him as a coach.

“I’m very grateful for my team, all the coaches, all the players. They really made me feel welcome coming into this team as a freshman.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/14/soccer-crown-point-liam-bazin-mike-bazin/