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Girls soccer: Naperville North stays calm, finds breakthrough goal vs. Lyons Twp.

A less patient team might have been more concerned as time ticked away in Thursday's girls soccer game.

Naperville North knows the benefits of not panicking, however.

The Huskies led off Naperville Invitational pool play with a 2-0 victory in Naperville, but the Lions made Naperville North work for the win.

"It was definitely a slow start," said Huskies senior defender Morgan Lockridge, who admitted to getting a little worried in the second half, "but I think we picked it up in the second half and we were attacking way more."

The Huskies, ranked No. 1 in the Daily Herald Top 20, remained undefeated at 10-0-1.

"I thought everything was working pretty well for us," Lions coach Bill Lanspeary added. "We knew that they were awfully good, so we knew that we would have to get back as a team defensively. But we also thought we'd get our chances going forward. For 63 minutes I thought we did that. Then a set piece got us. The second one was a little bit of a mistake, a lapse in the last few minutes. But that first one kind of took the wind out of our sails a little bit."

For the Huskies it was a good way to start the toughest regular-season tournament in the state.

"We love the invite," Lockridge said. "It's our tournament, we host it every year, so it's a huge deal."

The teams played evenly for the first hour of the game before the Huskies broke through in the 63rd minute. Off a Jeanine Valera corner kick, Ashley Santos' header gave the Huskies a 1-0 lead.

"In the second half, the first 15 minutes they kind of took it to us there," Huskies coach Steve Goletz said. "I'm not sure if it was a shift in the (20 mph) wind or we came out slow or they came out with some energy from half. I thought we did a pretty decent job in the first half of controlling it, got a couple of decent chances that we just never were really able to put together. But it definitely turned there on that restart."

Naperville North made sure of the victory in the 78th minute when Shaina Dudas' cross found junior Megan Benmore for an easy tap-in goal.

As usual Lockridge and her defensive teammates were stalwarts. They earned their seventh shutout of the season and dropped their goals against average to 0.36 without goalkeeper Elizabeth Cablk being forced to make a save.

"The back four was great," Goletz said. "We really limited them. (The Lions) weren't dangerous in the run of play at all."

The Huskies return to invitational play Friday when they host Lincoln-Way Central.

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