Girls soccer: St. Charles North holds off Geneva

In the ultimate example of delayed gratification, St. Charles North concluded a 2-1 girls soccer comeback victory over Geneva Thursday which essentially locks up the Upstate Eight River Divisiion title.

The unusual circumstances were a result of a May 25 match at St. Charles North when the visiting Vikings took the lead after 25:05 thanks to Allie Mikos' assist on a Jennifer Dominguez goal. Four minutes later, the then division unbeatens sat out a 30-minute lightning delay.

After a brief warm-up, the contest resumed and the North Stars had a lightning-quick equalizer as Ashley Hayes' stellar cross was knocked home by K.B. Kusswurm after only 11 seconds of play. As both teams were at the center of the field for another restart, more lightning was seen and with severe weather shown on radar, play was suspended.

With some schedule juggling, a change in location to Geneva's Burgess Field, and 238 hours later, North completed the comeback thanks to Lauren Muzzalupo's penalty conversion just 59 seconds into a second half that followed the last 10:44 of the original opening half.

Since that original game date, the North Stars have gone 4-1-1 in six games to sport a 13-3-1 overall ledger and a perfect 6-0 UEC River record with a Tuesday home date against Streamwood (6-11, 0-4) remaining. Unfortunately for Geneva, the setback is its fourth consecutive with the season mark dipping to 11-5-1 (3-2).

"We work every day on penalty kicks, so it's very gratifying to be successful," Muzzalupo said. "Basically I line up straight on the goal, look up to see the keeper, make some kind of fake and power through the shot. If it leads to a win like today, it always feels greater, and helping us in the conference makes it that much better."

"Restarting a game so many days later, new location, we told the girls we can only control our approach. We need to be mentally and physically ready to play," North coach Brian Harks explained. "To be perfectly honest, I was not pleased with how we started, so I was grateful to hear the buzzer sound after 10 minutes. We did a much better job after that."

Both sides had second-half opportunities, however, the goalies and defenses continually cleared the ball. The Vikings were under more pressure as the North Stars had 11 of 20 overall attempts and eight of 11 shots on goal during the final 40 minutes. By comparison, Geneva had four of 10 overall tries and one of four on target shots in the second half.

"We had opportunities but just didn't finish," Geneva coach Megan Owens said. "The Tri-Cities teams are tough and we fought a good fight, so I'm happy with our effort. They got a PK, which is almost a guaranteed shot, so that was the difference."