Naperville N. snaps
New Trier’s winning streak at 27
Upset of No. 1 Trevians gets date with Barrington in final
By Matt LeCren
NAPERVILLE – Naperville North coach Steve Goletz quipped before Friday’s Naperville Invitational semifinals that his team was the worst of the four teams remaining.
That statement was accurate inasmuch that Naperville North was the only one of the semifinalists that had lost a game this spring.
But the Huskies were considered by some to be one of the top two teams in the state and they showed why by knocking off top-ranked New Trier 3-1 at Memorial Stadium.
The second-ranked Huskies (11-1) extended their winning streak to 11 games while snapping the reigning state Class 3A champion Trevians’ winning streak at 27.
Naperville North now gets a chance to avenge its’ only loss of the season when it faces Barrington (14-0-3) in the title match at noon Saturday at Naperville Central
Barrington defeated previously unbeaten St. Charles East 3-1 in double overtime in the other semifinal.
“We’re really excited to play Barrington again,” Boswell said. “That’s the only team we’ve lost to this season [1-0 in the season opener]. Our team is a lot better than we were then, and if we try our best I really think we can do well and hopefully win.”
Boswell was her usual magnificent self against the Trevians, scoring one goal and assisting on another, but she got plenty of help from an impressive supporting cast. Allison Svoboda and Maddie Krecji also scored for the Huskies, while Morgan Krause and goalkeeper Fiona Baenziger added assists.
Baenziger made two saves despite being hobbled by injury, and defender Ashley Santos cleared a ball off the line to keep her team in front.
New Trier, which hadn’t lost since dropping a 1-0 decision to Waubonsie Valley in last year’s Naperville Invitational championship game, did not score in the run of play, with its only goal coming on a penalty kick by Celia Frei with 29:52 left in the second half.
“[The Huskies are] a great team,” Naperville North coach Steve Goletz said. “Coming into the year I thought that this could be a good group, but they’ve bought in so much to playing for each other. So many kids have just stepped up.
“To hold New Trier to nothing in the run of play, I thought we did a pretty good job. That’s about as talented a team as I’ve seen in a long time. They had a couple players not playing tonight, but Jim [Burnside] is a phenomenal coach and you know what you’re going to get from them – super fast, physical and a very technical team.
“For us to win tonight is a great feeling. The girls deserve it. They played so hard.”
The Huskies did so from start to finish, beginning the game with one exclamation point – a goal by Svoboda just 90 seconds in – and ending it with another as Boswell scored a brilliant goal with 13 seconds remaining.
Svoboda’s goal came off a corner kick from Morgan Krause, whose serve was so tight to the net that Svoboda was just three yards off the line when she volleyed it in to give Naperville North a 1-0 lead.
“We knew we had to come out strong,” said Svoboda, the Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match. “We knew they were undefeated for a long time so we knew we had to come out and make an impact, make them nervous to play us.
“We’re a great team, and we knew if we came out strong we would make them doubt themselves a little bit, so that goal definitely did that.”
The goal was the fourth of the season for the senior midfielder and none came easier.
“That was a great ball by Morgan,” Svoboda said. “She’s so good at serving those balls. She practices them consistently. Over spring break we were out here practicing balls.
“She is just so dedicated to making sure she plays a good ball. When she doesn’t play a good ball, she knows it is her fault and she gets on herself, and that’s what makes her such a great player because she holds herself accountable.”
That’s a common theme for this team, which has emerged as a tight-knit group that appears to be greater than the sum of its parts. They have one of the best players in the state in Boswell but also a core group of role players as talented as they are unselfish.
“This year we really focused on team unity,” Svoboda said. “I think over the past few years that has come and gone over the program, and this year we have incorporated every team in the program to be unified.
“So we do everything at every level and then with [the varsity] we make sure that each one of us is playing for each other. We play for the person next to us, not for ourselves, and that’s that has been the biggest difference this year.”
That cohesion shone through during a back-and-forth game that featured great finishes and great saves by both teams.
Baenziger made a tremendous save with 3:00 left in the first half when she deflected Gertie Harris’ 21-yard blast into the left post.
Her counterpart, Dani Kaufman, made six saves to keep the Trevians in contention, including a brilliant lunge to her right to get a piece of a header from Alexis Dandridge, who had run onto a pin-point cross from Boswell with 22:35 to go in the second half.
That save followed what could have been the most interesting five minutes of the match. During that span, Frei tied the game with her perfectly placed penalty kick, which barely eluded the fingers of the diving Baenziger and rolled inside the right post, and Krecji responded with the eventual game-winning strike just 3:11 later.
Baenziger triggered that play with a punt to midfield to Boswell, who took the ball up the middle and drew three defenders toward her before dumping the ball off to Krecji on the right wing.
The diminutive Krecji, the smallest player on the field, dribbled into the New Trier box, held off a challenge from a bigger defender and then beat Kaufman with a left-footed shot from eight yards out to give the Huskies a 2-1 lead.
“It was really exciting to [score] that,” Krecji said of her fifth goal of the season. “Boz played a great ball, and I was wide-open and it was a perfect ball for me to finish.”
Krecji’s finish was impressive considering it came with her weaker foot against a star goalie.
“She is very good,” Krecji said. “I felt pretty confident. Sometimes I’m not confident with my left foot, but I knew I had to finish it off for the team.”
The Huskies were able to finish the Trevians by responding well to adversity after giving up the tying goal and prevailing in the physical battles.
“Usually after [an opponent] scores we always know not to hang our heads and just get back at them with everything we’ve got,” Krecji said. “They’re No. 1 in the state, so it was huge and like Goletz was telling us, it’s just like a state Final Four game.
“It was a very good game and they were very tough and very physical, but we as a team knew how to deal with it.”
The Huskies also dealt with disappointment after two Naperville North goals were disallowed by the officials.
Svoboda had a goal, which would have made it 2-0, called back by an offsides call at the 7:45 mark of the first half. That call appeared to be correct, but there was controversy when a goal by Boswell was disallowed midway through the second half after a New Trier defender collided with Kaufman and went down holding her head.
“That was a little bit of a bummer,” Boswell said. “Dandridge wasn’t even the one that hit heads with her, it was someone from the other team, so that was pretty sad that just because they hit heads my goal didn’t get allowed.”
The Huskies, particularly Boswell and Svoboda, used the call as fuel.
“We were pretty mad,” Boswell said. “We were using our anger to get us going.”
The outcome was in doubt right up until the end, which came when Boswell broke free on a run up the left wing and sent a 22-yard shot lofting over Kaufman’s head and inside the far post with 13 ticks left. It was Boswell’s 11th goal of the season.
“Kids were just clinical in their finishing, and we talked before the game that we’re going to get chances,” Goletz said. “We’re a talented enough team and we’ve got to put them away. We did that. It was a great game.”
Burnside, whose team played without two of its top players in injured forwards Kelly Maday and Maggie Armstrong, agreed.
“It was. Everybody’s got injuries so you play with who you’ve got and somebody else has to step up,” said Burnside, who added that both players are expected back before the end of the regular season. “They’re a great team, well-coached, organized and athletic. They put us under pressure, which is good for us. That’s the kind of game you want at this time of the season.”
Starting lineups
Naperville North
GK: Fiona Baenziger
D: Ashley Santos
D: Morgan Krause
D: Jen Fortman
D: Emily Wilhelm
M: Maddie Krecji
M: Olivia Stapleton
M: Morgan Lockridge
M: Allison Svoboda
F: Abbie Boswell
F: Shaina Dudas
New Trier
GK: Dani Kaufman
D: Kristen Engelhard
D: Jen Fishman
D: Molly Cahill
D: Caroline Smith
D: Halley Kaufman
D: Britney Schuldt
M: Celia Frei
M: Adena Kerzner
M: Bina Saipi
F: Jackie Welch
Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match: Allison Svoboda, M, Naperville North.
New Trier’s winning streak at 27
Upset of No. 1 Trevians gets date with Barrington in final
By Matt LeCren
NAPERVILLE – Naperville North coach Steve Goletz quipped before Friday’s Naperville Invitational semifinals that his team was the worst of the four teams remaining.
That statement was accurate inasmuch that Naperville North was the only one of the semifinalists that had lost a game this spring.
But the Huskies were considered by some to be one of the top two teams in the state and they showed why by knocking off top-ranked New Trier 3-1 at Memorial Stadium.
The second-ranked Huskies (11-1) extended their winning streak to 11 games while snapping the reigning state Class 3A champion Trevians’ winning streak at 27.
Naperville North now gets a chance to avenge its’ only loss of the season when it faces Barrington (14-0-3) in the title match at noon Saturday at Naperville Central
Barrington defeated previously unbeaten St. Charles East 3-1 in double overtime in the other semifinal.
“We’re really excited to play Barrington again,” Boswell said. “That’s the only team we’ve lost to this season [1-0 in the season opener]. Our team is a lot better than we were then, and if we try our best I really think we can do well and hopefully win.”
Boswell was her usual magnificent self against the Trevians, scoring one goal and assisting on another, but she got plenty of help from an impressive supporting cast. Allison Svoboda and Maddie Krecji also scored for the Huskies, while Morgan Krause and goalkeeper Fiona Baenziger added assists.
Baenziger made two saves despite being hobbled by injury, and defender Ashley Santos cleared a ball off the line to keep her team in front.
New Trier, which hadn’t lost since dropping a 1-0 decision to Waubonsie Valley in last year’s Naperville Invitational championship game, did not score in the run of play, with its only goal coming on a penalty kick by Celia Frei with 29:52 left in the second half.
“[The Huskies are] a great team,” Naperville North coach Steve Goletz said. “Coming into the year I thought that this could be a good group, but they’ve bought in so much to playing for each other. So many kids have just stepped up.
“To hold New Trier to nothing in the run of play, I thought we did a pretty good job. That’s about as talented a team as I’ve seen in a long time. They had a couple players not playing tonight, but Jim [Burnside] is a phenomenal coach and you know what you’re going to get from them – super fast, physical and a very technical team.
“For us to win tonight is a great feeling. The girls deserve it. They played so hard.”
The Huskies did so from start to finish, beginning the game with one exclamation point – a goal by Svoboda just 90 seconds in – and ending it with another as Boswell scored a brilliant goal with 13 seconds remaining.
Svoboda’s goal came off a corner kick from Morgan Krause, whose serve was so tight to the net that Svoboda was just three yards off the line when she volleyed it in to give Naperville North a 1-0 lead.
“We knew we had to come out strong,” said Svoboda, the Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match. “We knew they were undefeated for a long time so we knew we had to come out and make an impact, make them nervous to play us.
“We’re a great team, and we knew if we came out strong we would make them doubt themselves a little bit, so that goal definitely did that.”
The goal was the fourth of the season for the senior midfielder and none came easier.
“That was a great ball by Morgan,” Svoboda said. “She’s so good at serving those balls. She practices them consistently. Over spring break we were out here practicing balls.
“She is just so dedicated to making sure she plays a good ball. When she doesn’t play a good ball, she knows it is her fault and she gets on herself, and that’s what makes her such a great player because she holds herself accountable.”
That’s a common theme for this team, which has emerged as a tight-knit group that appears to be greater than the sum of its parts. They have one of the best players in the state in Boswell but also a core group of role players as talented as they are unselfish.
“This year we really focused on team unity,” Svoboda said. “I think over the past few years that has come and gone over the program, and this year we have incorporated every team in the program to be unified.
“So we do everything at every level and then with [the varsity] we make sure that each one of us is playing for each other. We play for the person next to us, not for ourselves, and that’s that has been the biggest difference this year.”
That cohesion shone through during a back-and-forth game that featured great finishes and great saves by both teams.
Baenziger made a tremendous save with 3:00 left in the first half when she deflected Gertie Harris’ 21-yard blast into the left post.
Her counterpart, Dani Kaufman, made six saves to keep the Trevians in contention, including a brilliant lunge to her right to get a piece of a header from Alexis Dandridge, who had run onto a pin-point cross from Boswell with 22:35 to go in the second half.
That save followed what could have been the most interesting five minutes of the match. During that span, Frei tied the game with her perfectly placed penalty kick, which barely eluded the fingers of the diving Baenziger and rolled inside the right post, and Krecji responded with the eventual game-winning strike just 3:11 later.
Baenziger triggered that play with a punt to midfield to Boswell, who took the ball up the middle and drew three defenders toward her before dumping the ball off to Krecji on the right wing.
The diminutive Krecji, the smallest player on the field, dribbled into the New Trier box, held off a challenge from a bigger defender and then beat Kaufman with a left-footed shot from eight yards out to give the Huskies a 2-1 lead.
“It was really exciting to [score] that,” Krecji said of her fifth goal of the season. “Boz played a great ball, and I was wide-open and it was a perfect ball for me to finish.”
Krecji’s finish was impressive considering it came with her weaker foot against a star goalie.
“She is very good,” Krecji said. “I felt pretty confident. Sometimes I’m not confident with my left foot, but I knew I had to finish it off for the team.”
The Huskies were able to finish the Trevians by responding well to adversity after giving up the tying goal and prevailing in the physical battles.
“Usually after [an opponent] scores we always know not to hang our heads and just get back at them with everything we’ve got,” Krecji said. “They’re No. 1 in the state, so it was huge and like Goletz was telling us, it’s just like a state Final Four game.
“It was a very good game and they were very tough and very physical, but we as a team knew how to deal with it.”
The Huskies also dealt with disappointment after two Naperville North goals were disallowed by the officials.
Svoboda had a goal, which would have made it 2-0, called back by an offsides call at the 7:45 mark of the first half. That call appeared to be correct, but there was controversy when a goal by Boswell was disallowed midway through the second half after a New Trier defender collided with Kaufman and went down holding her head.
“That was a little bit of a bummer,” Boswell said. “Dandridge wasn’t even the one that hit heads with her, it was someone from the other team, so that was pretty sad that just because they hit heads my goal didn’t get allowed.”
The Huskies, particularly Boswell and Svoboda, used the call as fuel.
“We were pretty mad,” Boswell said. “We were using our anger to get us going.”
The outcome was in doubt right up until the end, which came when Boswell broke free on a run up the left wing and sent a 22-yard shot lofting over Kaufman’s head and inside the far post with 13 ticks left. It was Boswell’s 11th goal of the season.
“Kids were just clinical in their finishing, and we talked before the game that we’re going to get chances,” Goletz said. “We’re a talented enough team and we’ve got to put them away. We did that. It was a great game.”
Burnside, whose team played without two of its top players in injured forwards Kelly Maday and Maggie Armstrong, agreed.
“It was. Everybody’s got injuries so you play with who you’ve got and somebody else has to step up,” said Burnside, who added that both players are expected back before the end of the regular season. “They’re a great team, well-coached, organized and athletic. They put us under pressure, which is good for us. That’s the kind of game you want at this time of the season.”
Starting lineups
Naperville North
GK: Fiona Baenziger
D: Ashley Santos
D: Morgan Krause
D: Jen Fortman
D: Emily Wilhelm
M: Maddie Krecji
M: Olivia Stapleton
M: Morgan Lockridge
M: Allison Svoboda
F: Abbie Boswell
F: Shaina Dudas
New Trier
GK: Dani Kaufman
D: Kristen Engelhard
D: Jen Fishman
D: Molly Cahill
D: Caroline Smith
D: Halley Kaufman
D: Britney Schuldt
M: Celia Frei
M: Adena Kerzner
M: Bina Saipi
F: Jackie Welch
Chicagoland Soccer MVP of the Match: Allison Svoboda, M, Naperville North.