Naperville North offense erupts
against Plainfield South
Huskies set season-high for goals, take own regional title
By Dave Owen
NAPERVILLE -- The Bolingbrook Sectional saw four of its top seven seeds knocked out in their opening postseason games. Upset was the word of the round.
But the soccer world was back on its axis in one sense Friday, with a two-word synonym for postseason success in prime form: Naperville North.
State champions three of the last five years, the no. 2-seeded Huskies (16-3-4) grabbed their ninth regional title in a row with a 6-0 win over visiting 10th-seed Plainfield South (7-12-2) in the Class 3A Naperville North Regional final.
The Huskies, ranked seventh in the Chicagoland Soccer Top 25, will face 11th-seeded Wheaton Warrenville South at 7 p.m. Tuesday in a sectional semifinal. The Tigers beat higher seeds Oswego East and Oswego to advance.
With steely-eyed focus on more tournament glory, Naperville North is ready for whatever the next sectional twist brings.
“We're going to be ready to play them,” Huskies forward Alex Barger said. “We'll give them our best shot, and I know we'll get theirs.
“We're all working hard and fighting for each other. That's what it comes down to at the end of the day, who works the hardest.”
Hard work would eventually pay off Friday, but not before hard luck mixed with great goaltending by Plainfield South sophomore Leo Gamino frustrated the Huskies early.
Good chances in the first five minutes for Ryan Konrad and Jaxon Stokes were followed by a great bid 34:02 before halftime when Stokes was fouled on a drive to the box that earned his team a penalty kick.
But Gamino made a great diving save to the left post to deflect aside Huskies star Barger’s PK attempt. Gamino then beat Stokes to the rebound left of the net with a dive atop the ball to keep the score 0-0.
“He was very good against Bolingbrook (a regional semifinal upset win of the seventh seed in PKs on Tuesday), and he's been very good all year,” Plainfield South assistant coach Brady Renner said his keeper. “He made some unbelievable saves.”
But after another great Gamino save at the right post in the 14th minute, the Huskies’ relentless attacks would create deja vu – and a 1-0 lead.
With 22:26 left in the half, Stokes again stormed the box and was tripped to earn another PK.
“He's tough to stop,” Huskies coach Jim Konrad said of Stokes. “He's just so slick on the ball.”
This time, senior Aidan McMahon went lower right on his shot to put the Huskies in front for good.
“I just try to stay confident and keep my head high,” McMahon said of his PK approach. “And I just kind of look to see where the goalie goes, and look for the goalie’s movement to start out.
“He (Gamino) is fast. He’s a good player. I saw his body shade (to the left), and I just went the other way.”
The Huskies would continue with their pressure but would be denied in their bid to expand the lead until very late in the half.
Shots over the net in the 23rd minute by both Connor Hanrahan (off a Konrad pass) and Barger were followed in the 26th minute by a great counterattack.
Adam Zielke nicely cleared a Plainfield South 43-yard free kick send, setting up an eventual Barger shot off a Stokes pass that was blocked.
Then in the 29th minute, a Sam Hess corner kick set up a Caden Hill eight-yard drive that Gamino dove to deflect wide. Another corner kick followed, with Hess corralling the initial partial clear of the header and lining an 18-yard shot just wide.
Dueling saves in the 33rd minute by Gamino (on a Hess high 18-yarder) and Huskies goalkeeper Reed Goss (on a Benisio Gamino nice run to open space and 25-yard shot) kept the score 1-0. But the Huskies dug into their bag of tricks to close the half with a momentum-building put-away.
With just 3:22 until the break, Christian Kuncl’s initial pass from the midfield sprung Barger up the middle. He in turn found Hess on right the right side for a give-and-go. The return cross to the box found Barger running in stride to boom home a low 10-yard shot for a 2-0 Huskies lead.
“We've been working in practice on a couple of things, and crosses are one of them,” said Barger, who had just checked back into the game less than a minute earlier. “I was happy to be able to find Sam. He makes some space for himself and then ultimately finds me at the top of the box to put it in.”
Plainfield South’s offensive-end bids to try to answer in the 39th minute were met first by a Hess steal and clear, then Owen Gaccione with a pair of long sends to the offensive end.
“We fought well in the first half,” Renner said. “Giving up a couple PKs is never going to be a good thing, but we had a game plan that we felt we executed pretty well for about 40 minutes there.”
But in the next 40 minutes, the Cougars fell victim to a Huskies’ offensive onslaught.
Naperville North needed just 105 seconds to up its lead to 3-0. This time it was junior Hindo Allie playing a key role, with a long dribble drive to the end line right and a cross to Stokes at the doorstep for the put-away.
Then with 33:19 left to play, an Alex Arredondo throw-in 15 yards off the end line on the left sideline found Noah Radeke at the back post for a deflection inside the right post and a 4-0 lead.
“I saw the ball that ‘Dondo’ threw, and I capitalized,” Radeke said.
Just 33 seconds later, a Barger cross deflected to McMahon inside the six for a score inside the left post. And with it, the Huskies had matched their highest scoring games of the season in just 47:14 of play.
“Getting the chances to shoot really helped,” Radeke said. “And playing balls to Alex and Stokes for them to do what they do, it's really nice. They got to the sidelines and put the ball in, and we finished our opportunities.
“We started off strong and continued all the way through the game. And we started off the second half scoring goals quickly.”
McMahon’s two-goal game upped his 2022 goal total to seven.
“The offense was great,” McMahon said. “We had a lot of space in the midfield, which is really good for us, because I feel our midfield is really dynamic.
“And giving us a lot of space gives us an opportunity to get the ball behind to Stokes and Barger. I think it's tough to defend when we have three or four guys behind the defense.”
The Huskies kept pushing for more success.
Keeper Gamino slowed the onslaught with two nice saves, a diving swat at the right post on a Barger 18-yard liner with 32:05 left and a sliding kick save in the crease on a deflection of Zielke’s 50-yard free kick four minutes later.
A Josh Pedersen header just wide off a corner kick followed with 23:20 to go, before Connor Hanrahan used a great individual effort to net the night’s final goal 10 minutes later.
Dribbling in right of the box and then angling toward the middle, Hanrahan powered a low 18-yard shot inside the right post to give the Huskies their season-high sixth goal.
“In the first half you look at the score sheet and maybe it was a little slow,” Barger said, “but we created the chances.
“Maybe finishing was a little bit of an issue to start (the game), but eventually we found the back of the net. And that's really good for us going forward. I think it really brings some confidence into us.
“I think for the most part we stuck to what we were doing (all year),” Barger added. “We just did it at a quicker pace, and were able to get the ball off our foot quicker, pick our heads up quicker and find the best possible passes. I think we just overall improved our attacking game.”
Somewhat lost in the offense’s breakout was a shutout performance by goalkeepers Goss and Jeremy Moss (who played the last 20 minutes) and the Huskies defense.
“We're really proud of our guys in the back,” Konrad said. “I thought my son Ryan was very good tonight. Zielke was great, and Cade (Hill) and Alex (Arredondo) did a great job outside of managing, because they have a great attack.
“Our focus was trying to keep that part of the game under control, and then obviously Stokes was so good going to the goal today. That really created some problems for them, and then Barger and Hess combined for that second goal and gave us a little bit of breathing room.
“Then in the second half we came out and things just went our way,” Konrad added.
The scoring outburst obscured a strong early effort by the Cougars.
“I think the score line was a bit harsh,” Renner said. “We went into the second half 2-0, but once they put in a few it got tough on us.”
Plainfield South had wins over quality teams Oswego East and Riverside-Brookfield this season.
“I know coach (Nick) Skrip pretty well,” Konrad said. “He's a good guy, a friend of mine. He's doing a great job.
“That number nine up-top (Benisio Gamino) was special. He definitely was a handful, and number 20 (Amir Saba). They did a really good job looking to counter us, and we had to make some adjustments to them.”
Said Barger: “Plainfield South is a team that works hard. We knew coming in they would come at us from the start. Things fell our way, and we were able to come home with a good result.”
Now it’s on to sectionals, where a Wheaton Warrenville South team hitting its peak at the right time joins top-seed Naperville Central and fifth-seeded West Aurora.
“I think there's a lot more parity,” Konrad said. “There's not that team that was breathtakingly better than everyone else. Obviously, York and Elgin have been great, but there's been no one just rolling over teams. I think it's a wide-open tournament this year.”
Konrad is just happy his team is part of that mix of contenders still standing.
“We've been generating a lot more chances lately, which has been great,” he said. “It was nice to finish them tonight. It was a good confidence-builder. I hope we can keep doing this.
“I was thrilled with the decision-making, getting to the right spots at the right times and then just being comfortable in front of the goal. They didn't try to kill it. They just finished goals.”
Huskies players share their coach’s optimism.
“Going forward I think we feel very confident,” Barger said. “We needed this breakthrough game with six goals scored, because we've been struggling a bit. I think it gives us a lot of momentum going forward into Tuesday’s game.”
“We feel good,” Radeke said. “Restarts are going to be good for us, and we feel good going into sectionals.”
Starting lineups
Naperville North
GK: Reed Goss
D: Ryan Konrad
D: Alex Arredondo
D: Adam Zielke
D: Caden Hill
M: Owen Gaccione
M: Hindo Allie
M: Noah Radeke
F: Aidan McMahon
F: Jaxon Stokes
F: Alex Barger
Plainfield South
GK: Leo Gamino
D: Rafael Pineda
D: Connor Pabon
D: David Sanchez
D: Abe Mensah
M: Adriel Rivas
M: Rene Saldivar
M: Justin Iturraide
M: Amir Saba
F: Mofeed Altorkmani
F: Benisio Gamino
Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match:
Aidan McMahon, sr., F, Naperville North
Scoring summary
First half
NN- Aidan McMahon (PK), 18’
NN- Alex Barger (Sam Hess), 37’
Second half
NN- Jaxon Stokes (Hindo Allie), 42’
NN- Noah Radeke (Alex Arredondo), 47’
NN- McMahon (Barger), 48’
NN- Connor Hanrahan (unassisted), 67’
against Plainfield South
Huskies set season-high for goals, take own regional title
By Dave Owen
NAPERVILLE -- The Bolingbrook Sectional saw four of its top seven seeds knocked out in their opening postseason games. Upset was the word of the round.
But the soccer world was back on its axis in one sense Friday, with a two-word synonym for postseason success in prime form: Naperville North.
State champions three of the last five years, the no. 2-seeded Huskies (16-3-4) grabbed their ninth regional title in a row with a 6-0 win over visiting 10th-seed Plainfield South (7-12-2) in the Class 3A Naperville North Regional final.
The Huskies, ranked seventh in the Chicagoland Soccer Top 25, will face 11th-seeded Wheaton Warrenville South at 7 p.m. Tuesday in a sectional semifinal. The Tigers beat higher seeds Oswego East and Oswego to advance.
With steely-eyed focus on more tournament glory, Naperville North is ready for whatever the next sectional twist brings.
“We're going to be ready to play them,” Huskies forward Alex Barger said. “We'll give them our best shot, and I know we'll get theirs.
“We're all working hard and fighting for each other. That's what it comes down to at the end of the day, who works the hardest.”
Hard work would eventually pay off Friday, but not before hard luck mixed with great goaltending by Plainfield South sophomore Leo Gamino frustrated the Huskies early.
Good chances in the first five minutes for Ryan Konrad and Jaxon Stokes were followed by a great bid 34:02 before halftime when Stokes was fouled on a drive to the box that earned his team a penalty kick.
But Gamino made a great diving save to the left post to deflect aside Huskies star Barger’s PK attempt. Gamino then beat Stokes to the rebound left of the net with a dive atop the ball to keep the score 0-0.
“He was very good against Bolingbrook (a regional semifinal upset win of the seventh seed in PKs on Tuesday), and he's been very good all year,” Plainfield South assistant coach Brady Renner said his keeper. “He made some unbelievable saves.”
But after another great Gamino save at the right post in the 14th minute, the Huskies’ relentless attacks would create deja vu – and a 1-0 lead.
With 22:26 left in the half, Stokes again stormed the box and was tripped to earn another PK.
“He's tough to stop,” Huskies coach Jim Konrad said of Stokes. “He's just so slick on the ball.”
This time, senior Aidan McMahon went lower right on his shot to put the Huskies in front for good.
“I just try to stay confident and keep my head high,” McMahon said of his PK approach. “And I just kind of look to see where the goalie goes, and look for the goalie’s movement to start out.
“He (Gamino) is fast. He’s a good player. I saw his body shade (to the left), and I just went the other way.”
The Huskies would continue with their pressure but would be denied in their bid to expand the lead until very late in the half.
Shots over the net in the 23rd minute by both Connor Hanrahan (off a Konrad pass) and Barger were followed in the 26th minute by a great counterattack.
Adam Zielke nicely cleared a Plainfield South 43-yard free kick send, setting up an eventual Barger shot off a Stokes pass that was blocked.
Then in the 29th minute, a Sam Hess corner kick set up a Caden Hill eight-yard drive that Gamino dove to deflect wide. Another corner kick followed, with Hess corralling the initial partial clear of the header and lining an 18-yard shot just wide.
Dueling saves in the 33rd minute by Gamino (on a Hess high 18-yarder) and Huskies goalkeeper Reed Goss (on a Benisio Gamino nice run to open space and 25-yard shot) kept the score 1-0. But the Huskies dug into their bag of tricks to close the half with a momentum-building put-away.
With just 3:22 until the break, Christian Kuncl’s initial pass from the midfield sprung Barger up the middle. He in turn found Hess on right the right side for a give-and-go. The return cross to the box found Barger running in stride to boom home a low 10-yard shot for a 2-0 Huskies lead.
“We've been working in practice on a couple of things, and crosses are one of them,” said Barger, who had just checked back into the game less than a minute earlier. “I was happy to be able to find Sam. He makes some space for himself and then ultimately finds me at the top of the box to put it in.”
Plainfield South’s offensive-end bids to try to answer in the 39th minute were met first by a Hess steal and clear, then Owen Gaccione with a pair of long sends to the offensive end.
“We fought well in the first half,” Renner said. “Giving up a couple PKs is never going to be a good thing, but we had a game plan that we felt we executed pretty well for about 40 minutes there.”
But in the next 40 minutes, the Cougars fell victim to a Huskies’ offensive onslaught.
Naperville North needed just 105 seconds to up its lead to 3-0. This time it was junior Hindo Allie playing a key role, with a long dribble drive to the end line right and a cross to Stokes at the doorstep for the put-away.
Then with 33:19 left to play, an Alex Arredondo throw-in 15 yards off the end line on the left sideline found Noah Radeke at the back post for a deflection inside the right post and a 4-0 lead.
“I saw the ball that ‘Dondo’ threw, and I capitalized,” Radeke said.
Just 33 seconds later, a Barger cross deflected to McMahon inside the six for a score inside the left post. And with it, the Huskies had matched their highest scoring games of the season in just 47:14 of play.
“Getting the chances to shoot really helped,” Radeke said. “And playing balls to Alex and Stokes for them to do what they do, it's really nice. They got to the sidelines and put the ball in, and we finished our opportunities.
“We started off strong and continued all the way through the game. And we started off the second half scoring goals quickly.”
McMahon’s two-goal game upped his 2022 goal total to seven.
“The offense was great,” McMahon said. “We had a lot of space in the midfield, which is really good for us, because I feel our midfield is really dynamic.
“And giving us a lot of space gives us an opportunity to get the ball behind to Stokes and Barger. I think it's tough to defend when we have three or four guys behind the defense.”
The Huskies kept pushing for more success.
Keeper Gamino slowed the onslaught with two nice saves, a diving swat at the right post on a Barger 18-yard liner with 32:05 left and a sliding kick save in the crease on a deflection of Zielke’s 50-yard free kick four minutes later.
A Josh Pedersen header just wide off a corner kick followed with 23:20 to go, before Connor Hanrahan used a great individual effort to net the night’s final goal 10 minutes later.
Dribbling in right of the box and then angling toward the middle, Hanrahan powered a low 18-yard shot inside the right post to give the Huskies their season-high sixth goal.
“In the first half you look at the score sheet and maybe it was a little slow,” Barger said, “but we created the chances.
“Maybe finishing was a little bit of an issue to start (the game), but eventually we found the back of the net. And that's really good for us going forward. I think it really brings some confidence into us.
“I think for the most part we stuck to what we were doing (all year),” Barger added. “We just did it at a quicker pace, and were able to get the ball off our foot quicker, pick our heads up quicker and find the best possible passes. I think we just overall improved our attacking game.”
Somewhat lost in the offense’s breakout was a shutout performance by goalkeepers Goss and Jeremy Moss (who played the last 20 minutes) and the Huskies defense.
“We're really proud of our guys in the back,” Konrad said. “I thought my son Ryan was very good tonight. Zielke was great, and Cade (Hill) and Alex (Arredondo) did a great job outside of managing, because they have a great attack.
“Our focus was trying to keep that part of the game under control, and then obviously Stokes was so good going to the goal today. That really created some problems for them, and then Barger and Hess combined for that second goal and gave us a little bit of breathing room.
“Then in the second half we came out and things just went our way,” Konrad added.
The scoring outburst obscured a strong early effort by the Cougars.
“I think the score line was a bit harsh,” Renner said. “We went into the second half 2-0, but once they put in a few it got tough on us.”
Plainfield South had wins over quality teams Oswego East and Riverside-Brookfield this season.
“I know coach (Nick) Skrip pretty well,” Konrad said. “He's a good guy, a friend of mine. He's doing a great job.
“That number nine up-top (Benisio Gamino) was special. He definitely was a handful, and number 20 (Amir Saba). They did a really good job looking to counter us, and we had to make some adjustments to them.”
Said Barger: “Plainfield South is a team that works hard. We knew coming in they would come at us from the start. Things fell our way, and we were able to come home with a good result.”
Now it’s on to sectionals, where a Wheaton Warrenville South team hitting its peak at the right time joins top-seed Naperville Central and fifth-seeded West Aurora.
“I think there's a lot more parity,” Konrad said. “There's not that team that was breathtakingly better than everyone else. Obviously, York and Elgin have been great, but there's been no one just rolling over teams. I think it's a wide-open tournament this year.”
Konrad is just happy his team is part of that mix of contenders still standing.
“We've been generating a lot more chances lately, which has been great,” he said. “It was nice to finish them tonight. It was a good confidence-builder. I hope we can keep doing this.
“I was thrilled with the decision-making, getting to the right spots at the right times and then just being comfortable in front of the goal. They didn't try to kill it. They just finished goals.”
Huskies players share their coach’s optimism.
“Going forward I think we feel very confident,” Barger said. “We needed this breakthrough game with six goals scored, because we've been struggling a bit. I think it gives us a lot of momentum going forward into Tuesday’s game.”
“We feel good,” Radeke said. “Restarts are going to be good for us, and we feel good going into sectionals.”
Starting lineups
Naperville North
GK: Reed Goss
D: Ryan Konrad
D: Alex Arredondo
D: Adam Zielke
D: Caden Hill
M: Owen Gaccione
M: Hindo Allie
M: Noah Radeke
F: Aidan McMahon
F: Jaxon Stokes
F: Alex Barger
Plainfield South
GK: Leo Gamino
D: Rafael Pineda
D: Connor Pabon
D: David Sanchez
D: Abe Mensah
M: Adriel Rivas
M: Rene Saldivar
M: Justin Iturraide
M: Amir Saba
F: Mofeed Altorkmani
F: Benisio Gamino
Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match:
Aidan McMahon, sr., F, Naperville North
Scoring summary
First half
NN- Aidan McMahon (PK), 18’
NN- Alex Barger (Sam Hess), 37’
Second half
NN- Jaxon Stokes (Hindo Allie), 42’
NN- Noah Radeke (Alex Arredondo), 47’
NN- McMahon (Barger), 48’
NN- Connor Hanrahan (unassisted), 67’