Host Redhawks shine vs. Wheaton Warrenville South

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By Matt Le Cren
Photos courtesy of Diana Fowee

The race for the DuPage Valley Conference championship still has a long way to go, but Naperville Central is clearly in the driver’s seat after Monday night’s impressive 2-1 defeat of visiting Wheaton Warrenville South.

Count WW South coach Guy Callipari among the witnesses who were impressed with the Redhawks’ high level of play.

“If they play that way, they’re deserving of being champs,” Callipari said. “Give credit to them. They were very hungry this evening and well-deserving of the victory.”

That wasn’t the case in the early going.

“If you had shown up and just watched the first five minutes, you wouldn’t have said that,” Naperville Central coach Ed Watson said. “So it’s a good thing you play 80 minutes. I felt we did a very nice job in the second half of keeping them in front of us. They were behind us too much in the early going.”

The Tigers (4-3, 1-1) were the dominant side at the outset and took advantage of some hustle by Hailey Gill to draw first blood. Gill aggressively challenged a Central defender and stole the ball in the Redhawks’ penalty area and was quickly dumped to the turf.

Teammate Laine Jackson converted the penalty kick with 4:16 elapsed even though Redhawks goalie Jill D’Amico guessed right, ramming it into the upper left corner of the net.

But after that it was all Redhawks, who could easily have scored more goals if not for two near-misses and two great saves by Tigers keeper Kelsey Graham.

“I think we kind of woke up a sleeping lion a little bit by getting the early goal,” Callipari said. “Scoring early certainly left us a little complacent. We were hungry in the first four minutes, which created the goal, and then we became a little safeguarded and you can never play that way. You can’t play tentative, you can’t play on your heels and try to protect something with that much time in the game.

“You have to give them credit; they did a great job of being a little bit more aggressive and we were tentative and you could see that on the dead ball situations too. They got numbers going forward and they were more apt to chase down those loose balls than we were. They were just very hungry in the air and won everything 50/50 in the air and were quick to the ball.”

The Redhawks (6-3-2, 2-0) got the equalizer at the 23:16 mark of the first half. Krissy Many’s long throw-in from the right side bounced through the crease and Meredith McEniff finished from five yards out.

Central then went ahead to stay with 2:58 remaining before intermission on another dead ball. Kristin Adams sent a corner kick in front to Ashley Tegge, who knocked it in from the back post. That gave the Redhawks five goals in the past two matches, both victories over quality opponents.

“Kristen Adams hit a great ball in with her left foot and luckily it just kind of skipped through everyone somehow and I just happened to be at the back post to tip it in,” Tegge said. “I think we’re finally figuring out how to work the midfield and how to get those forwards in behind. We’ve really struggled getting pressure on the goal but these last two games we’ve been pressuring teams in the box constantly and finally they’re starting to go in, so it’s nice.”

Rather than sit on the lead, the Redhawks continued to play an attractive, attacking style of soccer. Though Dana Miller and Kate Fowee provided a few hopeful moments for the Tigers, the host side dominated the action in the second half, outshooting WW South 12-2.

“I think a lot of it was we knew we had the lead and we knew we had a game plan for if things got close, but we didn’t want to have to resort to that, so we just played hard, played aggressive,” Many said. “Our backs did a really good job stepping up and intercepting their attempted through balls. We did a good job committing people but also coming back to defend.

“We didn’t want to lose to these guys,” she added. “It’s always a really, really tough game when we play them. The second we got down 1-0 was really frustrating, but we came right back and scored and then we put the second one in and we knew that was the closer. We would have liked to score through the run of play but set pieces, if that’s what works, then that’s what we’ll do.”

The Redhawks didn’t score in the run of play, but they came awfully close. Veronica Ellis hit the crossbar with a 33-yard shot, Natalie Selk barely missed a 15-yarder over the bar and WW South goalie Kelsey Graham made six saves, including two diving stops on point-blank headers.

“She had a couple reaction saves that you would hope our defense would be apt to win those balls, but that’s what she’s supposed to do,” Callipari said of Graham. “You call upon her and she’s capable. She’s a senior and a leader for us and her presence was needed.”

Consistent offense is something the Redhawks will need in order to compete regularly with the elite teams and they may have found that spark.

“We talked about creating shots and then we scrapped that and said, ‘Let’s just try to create opportunities,’” Watson said. “If a shot comes out of them, that’s a bonus.

“I thought after about 15 minutes, we finally started to do what we have to do. The girls have to recognize that our possession comes at the right times. We have to put the ball in dangerous places and we started to do that.

“I think part of it is it’s like a chicken contest. They’ve got four girls committed forward, we’ve got three girls committed forward and there isn’t a lot of midfield, so we ended up overpowering them in the second half with the midfield.”

Though five league games remain, the Redhawks know they have cleared a major hurdle.

“This is a huge step,” Tegge said. “We knew that we had to go out and win this game to get an advantage in conference. We’ve got [Naperville] North next Monday. Those are normally our two biggest games in the conference so this is really a huge win for us.”