Naperville Central, St. Charles East play to a draw

Playing goalkeeper is hard on the body under normal conditions. Playing with a bad back raises the degree of difficulty to painful levels.

It didn't stop Naperville Central senior Kinzly Dressler from frustrating a strong and consistent St. Charles East girls soccer attack in a 1-1 draw Friday night at the 28th annual Rose Augsburg-Drach Invitational.

"It's doable. It's manageable," Dressler said. "Gotta stick it out for the team. It's on and off. After saves and stuff, hitting the ground is what kind of triggers it."

"She was great," Redhawks coach Ed Watson. "She made saves that she needed to make and obviously she had more work than their keeper. It was a well-placed shot that beat her, and that's all you can ask. Get beaten by a shot that you can at least say, that was quality."

Dressler impressed the Saints also.

"She had a great game," St. Charles East coach Paul Jennison said. "Honestly, she made a couple of great saves, especially in the last 15 minutes."

The Saints (4-0-3) didn't give Dressler much time to rest her balky back. They clearly won the possession battle, launching 18 shots in Dressler's direction, forcing her to make 9 saves. Saints goalkeeper Grace Griffin made 2 saves against 6 Redhawks shots.

"She's a tough kid," Watson said of Dressler. "Absolutely a tough kid. It would have been nice to get her a shutout tonight. She certainly earned it. That's a very talented team. (The Saints) play an attractive brand of soccer."

"My back line does a really good job," Dressler said. "My center backs (Caitlin Reece and Sarah Avery) do a good job of shot stopping."

Naperville Central (3-3-2) struck first. Maggie Hillman sent teammate Meredith McGuire through on a counterattack in the 27th minute. McGuire briefly lost the ball to a Saints defender, won it back and scored from the top of the penalty area.

"Meredith is a great player," Dressler said. "We can always rely on her. Her coming back this year (from club ball) was our big strength. We really knew that we needed a goal scorer, and her coming back, along with Meredith Hannan, we can always rely on those two to come out and score big goals."

Dressler and her teammates held off the Saints until the 71st minute, when junior forward Chantal Carranza broke through on a well-struck, well-placed shot from just inside the right corner of the penalty area.

While the result wasn't exactly what the Saints wanted, the way they played made them happy.

"A good finish from them on their part, a nice finish from us," Jennison said. "I thought they defended well. A great response from us tonight in terms of the way we played. I thought our girls put a great sequence of passing together for a good 40 minutes. Maybe didn't come in at halftime the way we wanted, but the response in the second half was even better, and honestly on a different day, a little bit of luck here and there and you find yourself winning that game."

The tough time finishing isn't a concern, Jennison said.

"I would be more worried if we weren't creating chances and we weren't playing well," he said. "We really do have a solid belief in the way we want to play the game and these girls have really been working it."