Huskies top Redhawks for 1st Naperville Invite crown
By Matt Le Cren

Naperville North midfielder Christa Szalach has scored a lot of memorable goals in her career, including the game-winner in the fourth overtime of last year’s state championship match.

The Purdue recruit tallied another historic game-winner to her resume on Saturday, scoring the first goal as well as assisting on the second in the Huskies’ 3-0 victory over crosstown rival Naperville Central in the championship game of the 16th annual Naperville Invitational at Memorial Stadium.

Naperville North has won seven state trophies, including two championships, in the past 25 years but had never won the Naperville Invitational, a fact Szalach was still wrapping her mind around following the match.

“I am [surprised North had never won],” Szalach said. “I don’t want to be cocky but Naperville North is a good program. I’m glad that we were the first team to win it for our school and I wouldn’t have wanted to do it with any other group of girls so it was a great win.”

It was also a bit of an anticlimactic one because the host Redhawks (12-3-3) lost starting goalie Abby Hershik to injury just 31 seconds into the match.

Hershik made a great save to stop Zoe Swift on a breakaway but had to leave the game after suffering a badly bruised leg when Swift’s cleats plowed into her shin.

Hershik was replaced by senior Nikki Connors, a volleyball player who was making just her third appearance ever.

The Huskies (12-0-2) took advantage of that to score two goals late in the first half. Szalach got the first one on a 28-yard shot over the head of Connors with 9:38 to go in the period off an assist from Emily Bromagen.

Szalach set up the second goal when she won a 50-50 ball and fed Abbie Boswell, whose roller from 25 yards out went under the arms of Connors at the 2:14 mark. It was Boswell’s 19th goal of the season.

Naperville North coach Steve Goletz, himself a former star goalie at Downers Grove South and Northern Illinois, could empathize with Connors.

“Goalkeeper is a tough position because all eyes are on you,” Goletz said. “Being a former goalkeeper, knowing that when you come in off the bench and you truly weren’t expecting to play, it’s tough to kind of get into the flow of the game and I think the girls did a good job of getting shots on goal and we were fortunate that a couple of them went in.”

Though it took them a half-hour to do so, the Huskies knew they had an advantage with Hershik out and wanted to test Connors.

“Definitely,” Szalach said. “I think in any game you want to get a feel for the keeper and especially since their keeper went down pretty much at the start of the game, you’ve got to keep shooting.”

Scoring on Connors was bittersweet for Szalach as the two are friends, but business is business.

“She did great in goal,” Szalach said. “I personally know her through [the] JKB [leadership program] outside [of school] and she’s such a great girl. I give her so much credit for hopping in goal especially at this level. But we were just looking to take shots because you can’t score without taking shots.”

The shot of the game came with 25:49 to go in the second half when Naperville North midfielder Cora Climo blasted a 43-yard free kick into upper left corner of the net. Connors did well to get her fingertips on it but the ball had too much pace.

It was the first goal of the season for Climo, a Bucknell recruit known more for setting up goals than scoring them.

“Cora has done a lot, [with] her free kicks especially and on her corner kicks she does great,” Szalach said. “She has a great leg and she can place them very well and I think that’s a big contribution that she has to the team. It allows us to make our runs in hard.

“In addition to that she’s very strong on the outside. She’s able to hold the ball and calm us down sometimes and that’s exactly what we need, especially when you’re playing a team that’s flying at you constantly.”

Naperville Central was such a team and was able to keep the majority of the play in the midfield. The Redhawks handed the Huskies their last loss when they beat them 1-0 on penalty kicks in last year’s Naperville Invitational final. The Huskies have since gone unbeaten in their last 25 games.

“I think Cora’s shot was a pretty nice shot,” Goletz said. “Bad goals or not, we’ll take them and obviously it feels good to win the invite.

“We respect Naperville Central a lot and they’re a great team. They fight and play hard and 3-0 is not indicative of what the game was today. The good thing is we get to do it all over again on Thursday and hopefully it’s another great game between two great schools and great programs.”

Indeed, the rivals will meet again on the same field at 7 p.m. Thursday in a match that will decide the DVC championship and the Redhawks have a good foundation to build on.

“I definitely thought that the whole team stepped it up,” Naperville Central midfielder Veronica Ellis said. “We love Nikki Connors and we just wanted to support her and we didn’t want her to feel anything was her fault.

“She definitely did the best she could and I was really proud of her for coming out strong and getting the ball when it was bouncing into the box. She didn’t play scared today.”

One reason for that was the outstanding effort of Central’s back line of Ellie Fricke, Kayla Rowan, Amanda Alberts and Sabrina Cisneros, who limited Swift and Boswell to a combined six shots, only three of which were on frame.

Rowan, a freshman, had a brilliant outing. In one two-minute span in the first half, Rowan was as responsible as anyone for keeping the game scoreless.

After a high-arcing shot got by Connors, the ball was bouncing into the net when Rowan raced back and cleared the ball off the goal line as she crossed the line.

Moments later, Rowan stripped Boswell on a one-on-two rush up the middle, then outjumped Swift for a loose ball just outside the Central box.

The Redhawks weren’t as successful at the other end, where they mustered eight shots, two of which Ellis headed wide off of Cisneros corner kicks.

Ellis was the most dangerous Central attacker and wound up with half of her team’s attempts, including two near-misses in the second half.

The first came with 8:00 to go when she beat three defenders into the box but fired wide. A minute later, Ellie ticketed a 30-yard cracker for the top shelf, only to see Huskies goalie Fiona Baenziger tip it into the crossbar. Baenziger made four saves in posting her fifth shutout.

“At times we had a few shots and we want to keep working towards that,” Ellis said. “We want to push up our outside mids so we can get more into the attack.”

“I thought we played well,” Naperville Central coach Ed Watson said. “I’m happy with where we’re at right now. I would have liked to see it stay 0-0 a little bit longer and I think we were doing some things that could have eventually led to a goal.”