Naperville Central adjusts to Benet

It's not a good sign when your walking wounded far outnumber your goals scored.

Despite a handful of players unable to take the field Saturday night or helped off of it, Naperville Central pulled out a 1-0 nonconference victory against Benet in Naperville.

"The boys actually have a saying they use a lot," said Redhawks coach Troy Adams, who joked about substitutions being easier with only a few healthy players remaining on the bench. "It's called 'champions adjust.' That would sum up tonight. Champions adjust.

"You hate to see players go down, and that was a lot of players going down, a lot of good players going down tonight."

Junior Adam Hamielic scored the game's lone goal in the 26th minute when Benet (2-3-1) couldn't clear an AJ Seaman corner kick.

"We're disappointed that we gave up one early," Benet coach Sean Wesley said. "(Restarts) are our Achilles' heel this year. We have all kinds of big kids, we have all kinds of tough kids, and yet we give up goals on set plays it just seems every game."

"Great teams find ways to score, and they're not always pretty. But we found a way to score a goal that wasn't pretty, but it got in the back of the net," Adams said.

The Redhawks (6-2) had two other apparent goals waved off by the referee.

"We could have easily been down 2- or 3-0 going into the half," Wesley said.

Naperville Central junior goalkeeper Zach Richter earned his second shutout of the season.

"Zach came up with a couple of big-time saves, especially in the first half," Adams added.