Tigers hang tough with Huskies before dropping DVC clash

 

 

By Chris Walker

While the experience of playing high school sports is generally a fantastic one, it sadly can come to an abrupt end, too.

The area has already learned that Neuqua Valley senior standout Zoey Goralski, regarded by many as the top player in the state, won’t play this season due to an ACL injury. Fortunately, Goralski should recover and be able to have a fine career at UCLA.

Neither Naperville North nor Wheaton Warrenville South could avoid the injury bug during Thursday’s DuPage Valley Conference match in Wheaton.

As both teams took the field for just the third time this spring, the Huskies did so without National Soccer Coaches Association of America All-American Zoe Swift. The senior scored 25 goals and had five assists last year but recently hurt an ankle in practice.

Meanwhile, the Tigers lost fourth-year midfielder Dana Miller midway through the second half. Miller didn’t return to action and was limping afterward.

Although she only sustained a sprained ankle, and something players undoubtedly have to battle through most springs, it did keep her out of the lineup, which certainly didn’t help the Tigers' chances. She's currently day-to-day.

Miller and her teammates weren’t able to get much going offensively, while the Huskies scored twice in the second half to claim a 2-0 victory.

“We’re a young team and they’re a team that won state last year and is very talented,” Miller said. “I thought we put up a good fight and I think it was much more even in the first half, but then in the second half they kind of took over.”

An inability to keep pace with the Huskies' scoring attack ultimately caught up to the Tigers as well.

“Their forwards are really fast,” Miller said. “I know they’re missing Zoe (Swift) but they still have (Abbie) Boswell. They play with the defenders and just kicked it over us and got the people to run after it and get it. It works because they’re so fast.”

Fast is a good way to describe senior Christa Szalach’s header that ended up being the only goal the Huskies would need.

Seconds before scoring, Szalach nearly redirected Cora Climo’s corner kick into the net, but defender Allie Harvey and keeper Abbey Fuster were able to slap the shot out of harm’s way.

They wouldn’t be able to do it again, though. Climo’s ensuing corner kick came from the northeast corner of the field.

“Cora has got to be one of the best players in the state in serving a ball,” Huskies coach Steve Goletz said. “And I would challenge to find someone better than Christa in winning the ball in the air. She gets that diving header and it kind of gave us a sigh of relief a little bit and we played better.”

Szalach said that on these kinds of restarts you can’t do too much in preparation other than to get in the right place at the right time and react.

“It happens so quickly that you just don’t have time to trap it and then shoot it. You just have to react fast,” Szalach said. “Basically you’re just trying to get whatever you can on it and I just kind of dove for it.”

Her dive may not have wowed the crowd like Thornton Melon’s Triple Lindy did in Back to School, but it gave the Huskies what they needed to get the win, just like Melon did with his legendary, yet impossible dive.

“It’s one of those things I work on a lot so I was glad to see one of them pay off,” she said. “Cora fed such a great ball that I had to make sure to get my head on it.”

WW South really scuffled in creating much offense to challenge sophomore keeper Fiona Baenziger and the Huskies defense.

“We have to grow up a little bit and have to be more confident,” Tigers coach Guy Callipari said. “And we certainly need to be a little more physical.

“I think we were intimidated in the final 20 minutes of the first half, but came through in the second half and went after 50/50 balls as much as they could because we were giving 15-20 pounds here and there, and two to three years of experience.”

The Tigers had as many as four freshmen on the field at once, which created quite a daunting task for kids who were in junior high last spring while the Huskies were working toward a Class 3A state title.

“There’s a lot they can take away from a game like this and I hope they do that because if you make a play here or there it can change the outcome fairly easily,” Callipari said. “Soccer provides that for you where you can possess for 30 percent of the time and still win the ball game.

“I feel good with where we’re at and where we can get to, but we need to develop in order to raise the bar and play with some of the big dogs.”

While on the subject of big dogs, Goletz doesn’t have a date circled on the calendar for Swift’s return, but he expects her back later this month.

When they’ll be most challenged without her services will be next week when the Huskies do the unheard of – playing four games in as many days. The Huskies will take on Glenbard East, West Chicago, Waubonsie Valley and West Aurora on April 10-13.

“Since she rolled her ankle pretty good it’s going to take a little time, but it’s not season-ending by any means,” he said. “We’ll be cautious and get her back. Our athletic trainer is awesome and we’ll watch and do what we can to get her healthy.”

With Swift sidelined, Goletz received strong play from sophomore Claire Hilburger who assisted on Abbie Boswell’s goal in the 69th minute.

“We struggled in the first half in connecting passing and in getting in overall good defensive shape,” Goletz said. “We had some great chances in the first half that we didn’t put away and the second half was much better. We were much more confident on the ball.

“Claire (Hilburger) played some great minutes, which we especially needed with Zoe out,” Goletz said. “And Abbie Boswell was just phenomenal again. Sarah Feder and the forward line did a good job.”

Those errant passes over a lot of the first 40 minutes started to connect during the final 40 minutes.

“We started connecting in the second half and you’re not going to win if you don’t do that,” Boswell said. “You’ve got to go 150 percent and we did that in the second half and it worked.”

Going all out doesn’t come easily though, especially this early in the season when teams have spent very little time outdoors due to the weather and the fact that they were both just playing for the third time this season.

“They possess a lot of speed, too, so that takes even more out of you with all the chasing so it’s a difficult task both mentally and physically,” Callipari said.

“I thought we did a good job, especially in the first half, of getting people in and out to reserve them for the second half knowing the game would hopefully be in the balance at that time.”

Which it was for another 20 minutes and change before the Huskies put the game away with a pair of goals.

“We know there’s going to be a target on our backs and we’re going to be challenged in the DVC,” Huskies senior defender Angela Widlacki said. “We know we can’t just walk in and expect to win. We know we’re going to have to push even harder than we did last season.”