Reskala doubles up against Naperville N.
Naperville Central senior Sam Reskala had never scored against cross-town rival Naperville North.
He liked it so much the first time, he decided to do it again.
Reskala’s 2 goals started the visiting Redhawks (13-2-2, 6-1 DuPage Valley Conference) on their way to a 4-1 boys soccer victory against the Huskies (9-6-2, 3-4) on Tuesday in Naperville.
“It feels awesome,” Reskala said about his seventh and eighth goals of the season. “It’s pretty special because they’re our rivals. Ever since freshman year I’ve always tried scoring on them, never could get it.”
Reskala started the scoring in the ninth minute when he got a toe to a ball headed toward goal by a teammate. In the 18th minute he repeated the feat, this time following teammate Jay Tegge’s shot off the right post and cleanly slotting it into the net for a 2-0 lead that held up at halftime.
“It was a well-played game,” Redhawks coach Troy Adams said. “The things that we talked about doing, we did, and when that happens you’re really pleased as a coach. You enjoy seeing things that you do in practice come out in games.
“We talked about looking to play simple in the middle third, move the ball around, make them constantly adjust defensively. Talked about our forwards staying high, pressing their back line, not allowing their backs to be free to pick off passes. We preached a lot of patience. Let them make mistakes, make sure we get behind the ball, play good defense. We did all those things, and a couple of really nice finishes by a couple of people.”
David Murphy made it 3-0 Redhawks in the 52nd minute when he took advantage of a lot of space, took his time and teed up a shot from 20 yards in front of the Huskies goal. In the 68th minute Tegge’s long corner kick found senior Devon Amoo-Mensah, who headed the ball back across the goal, where junior Jordi Heeneman got a toe to hit and tapped it in the net.
“We talked at halftime, as long as we continue thinking about ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ we’ll be in good shape,” Adams said. “As soon as we start worrying about who’s scoring instead of that we’re scoring, that’s when you end up running into trouble, and they did a great job of keeping their focus on the ‘we.’”
Freshman Chris Sullivan broke up the Redhawks’ shutout bid with a goal in the 79th minute.
“Tough game for us,” Huskies coach Steve Goletz said. “I think we struggled tonight, and that’s a heck of a team over there. They took it to us from the first minute. The thing that was a little disappointing was not only were they better than us on the ball in creating opportunities, but for the first 40 minutes for sure they were the more physical team, they won 50/50 balls, they won first and second balls, and against a team as skilled as that one is, you really put yourself behind the eight ball.”
The Huskies have been struggling lately as they head toward the state playoffs.
“We’ve kind of hit a rough spot here,” Goletz said. “The good thing I told the kids tonight is if we have this performance next week at this time, you’re looking at your season being done. So we’ve got a week to kind of get ready here and fix some things hopefully and go back to the drawing board a little bit and make some improvements so the start of a new season in the playoffs can be a positive one for us.”