Heatherly's goal is heavenly to Naperville Central

When you have a big, strong leg like Naperville Central's Taylor Heatherly does, you're likely to utter the following statement more than a few times in your high school soccer career:

"I was trying to hit a serve, and it just kind of went in," Heatherly said. "I was very surprised."

Heatherly's free kick from 25 yards out on the left side flew toward the far post before ducking inside the upper left corner of the net en route to a 2-0 Redhawks win over Benet in Naperville Invitational second-round play.

Naperville Central (9-3) didn't allow Benet (9-4-2) a single shot directly on frame for 80 minutes, got a goal from Casey Short and improved to 2-0 in tournament play.

"We did a nice job of keeping the ball in front of us," said Redhawks coach Ed Watson. "We needed to keep contact with their two forwards and not allow them to get free.

"(Marking backs) Nikki Franzese and Jessica Rubin did a real nice job of defending the back today."

Benet fell to 1-1 in tourney play after knocking off Downers Grove South on Thursday. Senior Liz Dudek has been an offensive force for the Redwings this year, but the Redhawks never let her get loose.

"We had a couple opportunities, but when Liz doesn't carry us we really struggle offensively," said Benet coach Henry Wind. "We're just not a fluidly offensive team right now."

Five weeks into their season, the Redhawks have already surpassed their goal total for all of last year.

"By our sixth game this year we scored more goals than we did all of last year," Heatherly said. "And last year we only had eight wins and now we have nine."

The addition of Short has gone a long way toward helping the Redhawks put more goals on the board, and Kelly Blumberg and Kristen Hall have been consistently dangerous.

"We've had three girls that are all doing what they need to do to help us score goals," Watson said. "With the rest of the girls all playing their roles, we at least have to be thought of as dangerous."

Short scored after Morgan Alberts headed a Benet clearing shot back toward the box in the game's 47th minute. With a goalkeeper coming off her line, Short lofted a perfect shot over the top that got Naperville Central on the board.

"She showed presence of mind, knowing she just had to get it over the top of the keeper on that goal," Watson said.