No. 1 Neuqua Valley shuts out St. Charles North
Neuqua Valley earned a 2-0 boys soccer win over St. Charles North in Naperville on Tuesday, while the North Stars earned the respect of their coach.
Neuqua Valley, the Daily Herald's top-ranked team, got a pair of goals from Bret Hruby in improving to 8-0-1 on the year. The Wildcats played one- and two-touch soccer, and their defense held St. Charles North (8-3-1) to a pair of long-range shots on net for the day.
"They're strong up top, they play to feet really well, and they don't hold the ball for long," said North Stars midfielder Jon Schroeder. "They're a very good team."
Wildcats defenders Asa Carson, Tanner Fink, Robby Gargaro and Bo Miller were rock-solid throughout, and Miller earned an assist with a first-half goal kick that Hruby ran down at the other end of the field and hammered to the back netting.
"We made a defensive mistake. You don't let a ball bounce on a long ball, and we didn't get to it in the air," said North Stars coach Eric Willson. "Credit (Hruby). That was a fantastic finish."
Hruby's goal came in the 16th minute of a first half that saw the Wildcats send an additional handful of dangerous balls over the top for Hruby and Bryan Ciesiulka to run down.
The Wildcats earned a 3-0 edge in shots put on net in the first half, as their back line and midfielders took what was given throughout and did so in improved fashion from the start of the year.
"We're not hitting long balls every second anymore," Carson said. "We're passing it through the back, knocking it back and forth, and then looking to move it into the attack."
St. Charles North came out hard in the second half, with Vladamir Schlageter putting his squad's first shot on net from 25 yards out in the game's 42nd minute. One minute later the North Stars suffered a red card for hard play, giving the Wildcats a penalty kick that Hruby converted and putting the North Stars down a player for nearly the entire second half.
It was at that point that the North Stars did their school proud.
"You find out the character of boys when you're down 2-0 and you're down a man," Willson said. "You want guys to fight the rest of the way, and they did."
"Anytime you go a man down, you want to come out that much harder," Schroeder said. "We did well. We just couldn't get a good shot on goal in their third (of the field)."
The North Stars earned three corner kicks and four free kicks in good range of the Wildcats' goal in the second half. Austin Andrekus managed their only other shot on net for the game, also from long range, but Willson applauded his team's reaction to playing short-handed.
"We had a lot of guys play well off the bench, playing for some injured players, and it was good to see them play well in a meaningful game against a tough team," Willson said.
With a 2-goal lead and a man advantage, Neuqua Valley also wasn't about to push the issue.
"Once they got the red card we kind of said, 'OK, we'll stay back,' " said Wildcats coach Jim Johns. "We were up two goals, so we didn't commit too many guys to the attack after that."
"It kind of kills the game off, but we'd rather take the win. This was a stern test for us, and I thought we played well."