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Girls soccer: Huntley handles Hononegah

Losing 12 seniors from last season's team which finished fourth in the state in Class 3A, Huntley girls soccer coach Kris Grabner realizes he will have to possess the virtue of patience with his young Red Raiders early in the 2017 season.

The veteran coach was impressed with his team's effort in the Raiders' 3-1 win over Hononegah in opening round action of the Huntley Invitational Wednesday night.

"I go through our roster after every year and it was like delete, delete, delete after the last year's state tournament was over," said Grabner. "We graduated so many players and so many quality players from last season's team. We have six freshmen and five sophomores on the roster this season. We are playing a lot of young kids. We are still working on our chemistry and connecting as a team. Tonight was a huge improvement from our last game against Palatine. We attacked offensively from beginning to end and had very good spacing."

Huntley (2-0-1), which never trailed in the contest, scored first as Alyssa Xanos emerged from a pile in front of the net and blasted a shot past Hononegah goalie Alyssa Nicosia with 13:39 left in the first half.

Huntley didn't waste a lot of time in extending its lead to 2-0. With only 2 minutes and 43 seconds elapsing since Xanos' goal, Emma Vasconez tallied the Red Raiders' second goal of the night off a perfect feed from Hannah Scholer with 10:56 left in the first 40 minutes.

The visiting Indians sliced the Red Raiders' lead in half as Brynn Jacobi scored on an unassisted goal with 1:42 remaining before intermission.

Huntley's Tayah Owens scored on an unassisted goal with 30:48 left in the contest for the lone tally of the second half.

"We have so many new players and we have so many players in different roles," said Owens. "We lost a lot of great players from last season. We are still working on chemistry and connecting. We are still learning how to distribute the ball in a good position to score. We are coming along. I am trying to be a leader on this team. Tonight was a good effort and we had great improvement from our last game against Palatine."

Huntley outshot Hononegah 10-7.

Red Raiders' goalie Abbey Brown collected 6 saves for the winners while Nicosia registered 5 saves for the Indians.

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