Huskies shut down Lions in Naperville Invite opener

By Matt Le Cren

Zoe Swift isn't the best player in the state, but she may be one of the fastest.

The freshman striker displayed her blazing speed again Thursday night and in the process dismayed Lyons Township.

Swift scored a pair of beautiful goals to lift host Naperville North to a 2-0 victory over the Lions on the opening night of the Naperville Invitational.

"She's a great player," Naperville North senior playmaker Rycke Guiney said. "She's probably the fastest player I've ever seen. Our thing is to look for her first, so play the big ball first because we know she'll get there."

That's exactly what happened on both scoring plays. Guiney triggered the first by making a steal in the midfield and sending a long ball up the right sideline to a streaking Swift, who got around her defender into the box.

Lyons goalie Renata Butikas rushed out to cut down the angle but Swift beat her with a shot to the far post with 30:04 left in the second half.

"I always try to get behind the defense," said Swift, who has eight goals and two assists. "I use my speed to do it. I think we worked hard on our offense at practice Wednesday. We were just tired of losing. We took the initiative."

North (7-2-2), which has struggled lately after a 4-0-2 start, was actually outshot 13-12 by the Lions, including 9-4 in the second half.

But what the Huskies lacked in dominance they made up for in execution.

With Lyons (8-3) pressing for the tying goal, Swift struck again in similar fashion with 2:41 remaining.

This time it was freshman Cora Climo who made the pass to the right wing to Swift, who dribbled the ball 30 yards up the field before finishing from 18 yards out.

"She's a fast player up top and they kind of just kicked it down to her and let her run onto it," Lyons midfielder Katie Nasenbenny said.

"I think if you can stop that, it's the way to slow them down."

The Lions did limit the Huskies for much of the night. Butikas was sterling in the nets, making eight saves.

She made diving stops on Guiney and Kristina Dolak in the first half and knocked a 22-yard free kick from Guiney around the post in the second half.

Defender Emma Meyering made another save, heading a Tori Novak shot off the line.

"Renata had a great game," said Nasenbenny, who also praised the play of defenders Steph Condon, Ali Kowalski, Sarah Mazur and Elise Gordon.

"She made some great saves. She's really stepped up this year. And it's great to have Elise back."

Indeed, the return of Gordon bodes well for the Lions. The junior stalwart played her second match since missing two games with a concussion.

"She's just a tough kid," Nasenbenny said. "She will try to do anything in her power to try to get us a win. She's gotten a lot better over the past couple of years. It's great playing with her."

"It's very good to be back," said Gordon, who said she feels no ill effects from the concussion. "There are always things to work on, but I think we played hard and hopefully we'll try and improve for the next game.

"[Swift] is a really good player and I thought we did a pretty good job of shutting her down, but [there were] a few slip-ups and she got by."

Even the Huskies admitted they needed their best to win.

"It was just a great performance," Guiney said. "Tuesday and Wednesday we had really hard practices [working on] winning the ball in the air. We showed it out here [and needed to] because Lyons is a great team.

"There were some moments when it was scary but we can trust our goalie and trust our defense."

North goalie Allison Hitchcock made four saves to record her third shutout in four games since taking over the starting job from Ellie Flessner.

Fullbacks Dolak, Emily Janecek, Caroline Cass and Jamie Meno did a good job of preventing Nasenbenny and the equally-dangerous Kelsey Holbert from penetrating the penalty area, with most of the Lions' shots coming from long range.

"I thought we had quite a few shots; none of them really went our way," Nasenbenny said. "We weren't able to get any runs like we normally do.

"Normally Kelsey and I can do a lot of combinations and it seemed like they had quite a few kids back there. Just when you got down there you kind of had to go horizontal rather than north and south."

Nasenbenny came closest to scoring for Lyons when she curved a 19-yard shot from the right wing just over the left side of the crossbar midway through the first half. She missed another attempt from 25 yards out a minute into the second half.

Then with 6:30 to go, Holbert managed to get into the box and sent a 10-yard shot that Hitchcock saved on the right post but bobbled. Janecek was able to clear it before any LT player could get to it.

"[The Huskies] bottled things up," Lyons coach Bill Lanspeary said. "They had some numbers around the ball.

"But we gave a great effort. We were possessing the ball and [then] a giveaway in the middle and it caught our backs flat and then the quick counter and [Swift] was gone.

"The last one, given that was a great finish, but we were pushing to get numbers up so it was bound to happen. The last 10 to 15 minutes I thought we generated a lot."

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