Naperville North brings home title

Jack Barry probably hasn't been hit on the head as hard as he was Saturday.

It'll be hard for him to ever forget what such a header meant to him and his teammates, though. The Naperville North junior's shot in the 64th minute broke a 1-1 tie and lifted the Huskies to a 3-1 victory over Barrington in the Class 3A championship game at Hoffman Estates.

"I just tried to get a piece on it to get it on goal," Barry said. "It felt amazing when it hit the back of the net, but it didn't register until I saw the stands celebrating."

Senior Chris Sullivan sent in a free kick from 30 yards out that went into the middle of the box, past 6-foot-4 sophomore Colin Iverson and right in Barry's path. Barry got all of it, blasting a header that screamed into the net to give the Huskies the lead with only 14:34 remaining.

"We try to look for (Colin) and I follow so if anything goes over him," Barry said. "I just try to get on it so I was fortunate to get on the end of that."

Naperville North (21-2-3) has relied on set pieces all season long, so to score the game winner via one was seemingly perfect.

"It's a constant theme with us scoring on restarts," Sullivan said. "You can call it what you want and call it not pretty, but at the end of the day it wins games."

And it won a trophy, a big, beautiful shiny one.

"It feels great, but I can't really put it into words," Barry said. "I'm super happy for this group of guys and for these coaches who have invested so much in us. I couldn't say enough about them."

"It's going to take a long time for this to sink in. I don't know if I'm going to sleep tonight," Sullivan said. "It's always been a dream of mine. Someday I wanted to win the state championship and today was someday."

Barrington (23-4-1), which came back from a 2-0 deficit to beat Conant in the semifinals, tied the game in the opening minute of the second half on a Klaus Pallan goal.

The Huskies enjoyed a 1-0 lead for most of the first half as Barry's long throw-in found Will Ritzmann who was left wide open and beat goalkeeper Alex Ruffolo only 7:21 into play.

They added an insurance goal from Ian Guppy with 5:04 left to seal it.

"They've been resilient all year," Huskies coach Jim Konrad said. "They're annoying because they're calm and never get too up or too down. They just keep playing. Even though on the surface they don't appear tough, they're the toughest team I've ever coached."

And now they're state champions.