Naperville N. bounces back to beat Central
Face-to-face with adversity for perhaps the first time all season, the Naperville North Huskies didn't blink.
The Huskies bounced back from a Naperville Central onslaught in Game 2 to beat the host Redhawks 25-19, 15-25, 25-22 in girls volleyball Thursday evening.
Naperville North (10-0, 4-0 DuPage Valley Conference) hadn't even lost a game in its first nine matches. That jolt only brought out the Huskies' moxie.
"I was really impressed with how we came out in the third game," Naperville North coach Jennifer Urban said, "after getting beat pretty badly the second game."
The Huskies trailed 16-13 in Game 3 but came back to tie it on Emily Cardwell's fifth kill of the game. The two teams traded six ties until Naperville North scored the last 3 points of the match. Kaia Schwartz and Nrithya Sundararaman rose to block Naperville Central's Emily McGee at the net for the final 2 points.
"We just chipped away little by little," Urban said, "and made plays at the end. Our team defense was a lot stronger in the third game."
Cardwell had 6 of her 9 kills in the third game. Three came in succession early, helping the Huskies take back the momentum lost in Game 2.
"I was being a little bit smarter in the third game," Cardwell said. "I was hitting too much into the block in the second game, which was a problem. Their line was open in the third game. Good things happened."
"She brings a lot of energy to the court," Urban said of Cardwell. "The girls feed off of that."
Naperville North scored the last 4 points of the first game, but Naperville Central charged out to a 13-3 lead in Game 2 and never looked back. Meghan Bray had 10 kills in the game, three in a row to make it 13-3.
McGee had 20 kills and 13 digs for Naperville Central (9-1, 3-1) and Bray added 16 kills and 4 digs. Kelsey Hoey had 35 assists.
"You hate to lose because you put so much into it," Naperville Central coach Brie Isaacson said, "but I'm not sure that we're not a better team playing that match. I'm not even sure if we're not a better team losing that match. We got better at a lot of things, but it also exposed some weaknesses."
Audrey Wilson led Naperville North with 10 kills, Sidney Sauter had 6 and Schwartz and Sundararaman 4. Julie Chin had 13 digs and Jordan Pappas 29 assists.
The two teams could very well hook up again Saturday at the Wheaton Classic at Wheaton Warrenville South. For one night, though, the Huskies savored beating their cross-town rivals and the defending state champs.
"This is such a huge confidence-booster for us," Wilson said. "We've been looking forward to this game for so long. We knew it was time for us to step up and prove ourselves."
- Joshua Welge
$CLASS=breakhead$Boys soccer
Wheaton North 2, St. Francis 0: In its second Wheaton-area rivalry game in three days, Wheaton North came out hungry against St. Francis.
Maybe even hungrier than usual, courtesy of Tuesday's 3-2 overtime loss to Wheaton Warrenville South.
"Everyone's still pretty bitter about that loss," said Falcons senior Trevor Bushhouse. "That helped coming into this game."
Bushhouse and Pat Langan scored a goal each in a 2-0 Falcons win over visiting St. Francis, which fought tooth and nail and showed well despite the loss.
"If we played like this for all of our games, we wouldn't have the record we do," said Spartans coach Tim Dailey, of his 2-6-1 squad. "Finally, we ratcheted it up tonight.
"It was ugly soccer on our part, but I was very pleased with the attitude and the intensity."
The Spartans had to scrape and claw all over the pitch to compete with a skilled and physical team in the Falcons (6-1-2), whose coach expected nothing less.
"Any time we play any Wheaton school, it's a hard-fought game," said Falcons coach Bryce Cann. "We knew they'd be physical."
The Falcons had the better of play throughout the first half, and with limited space up the middle they used the field's width to good effect in attacking the Spartans.
Langan punched in the first goal in the 26th minute from 10 yards out, on a feed from Dayton Hendrickson.
"The first 40 (minutes) was solid. We possessed, looked calm on the ball, and looked like we were dictating the pace," Cann said.
The Spartans' attacked well throughout the second half, forcing 4 saves from Falcons goalkeeper Mat Bauer and fighting for every ball.
"We talked about raising the intensity and winning 50-50 balls," the Spartans' Greg Fetter said. "I think we'll play with this intensity from now to the end of the season."
The Falcons went up 2-0 when Mike Lenzi sent the ball toward the goalmouth in the 53rd minute, and Bushhouse settled it and poked it into net from 7 yards out.
The Falcons have now only given up 4 goals through nine games, with 7 shutouts this year.
"Our pressure up top helps a lot, just so (opponents) can't get combinations going," Bushhouse said.
"And our defense has stepped up this year."
The game was marred by the loss to injury of the Spartans' Mario Munoz, who played a stellar game for Dailey before being taken off the field by paramedics with a head injury after a collision, with 14 minutes left to play.
"He had a great game tonight," Dailey said. "And we've been banged up all year."
- Gary Larsen
$CLASS=breakhead$Girls tennis
Naperville North 5, West Aurora 2: Cleo Stephanides meet Deepthi Ramachandran.
Deepthi Ramachandran meet Cleo Stephanides.
That's pretty much how it went after tryouts when the two Naperville North tennis players, who hardly knew each other, were put together as a doubles team, and a No. 1 doubles team at that.
And the progress they've made helps make the Huskies optimistic about a return to the top four in a very balanced DuPage Valley Conference race.
Stephanides and Ramachandran, picked up their first conference victory to help the host Huskies to a 5-2 win over West Aurora.
"We were getting to the net a lot," Ramachandran said. "We talk to each other and get ourselves pumped up."
"They're athletic, very aggressive and very promising," said Naperville North coach Heather Henricksen. "They're willing to take risks on the court and they work hard to improve. They're very easy to coach."
Stephanides, a junior was a varsity exhibition player last year and Ramachandran, a sophomore, played doubles on the JV team.
Seeing the opportunities on this year's varsity due to heavy graduation losses, both girls worked hard (separately) over the summer to crack this year's starting lineup.
"I went out and played every day for four hours," Stephanides said. "And I came to tryouts to show that I was strong enough to play. I worked a lot on my net game."
"We work well together," Ramachandran said. "We contrast each other. Cleo is a lot more positive on the court. I get down on myself and she helps me out. She's got a great serve and my net play is consistent."
Henricksen was impressed with Ramachandran's work on JV last year and was tempted to bring her to the varsity several times, but she already had a deep lineup of experienced players.
"They're playing No. 1 doubles and they're not backing down," Henricksen said. "They're sticking with a game- plan and using each match to improve and gain confidence. When a player becomes experienced they have a Plan B to go to when things aren't working out. Cleo and Deepthi are still working on Plan A. But they've worked so hard to improve, I'm sure they'll get to that next level this year."
"In today's match Deepthi was poaching at the net a lot, and we were getting our serves in," Stephanides said.
The Huskies also got victories from Surbhi Agarwal at second singles, Emily Johnson at third singles and Kayla McIntosh at fourth singles.
The other win came at third doubles as Jessica Mohideen and Alicia Oken defeated Jin Lee and Kristin Holmes of West Aurora, 6-4, 5-7, 6-3.
Henricksen believes that this young Huskies lineup, which features veterans Ashley Ferkol and Agarwal will be stronger at then end of the year and able to challenge for the top half of the conference."
- Neil Shalin
Boys golf
Naperville North 154, Naperville Central 157: Birdies came in bunches in the lead foursome of the match between Naperville North and Naperville Central at Springbrook.
The Huskies' top duo of Ben Nelson and Joe Hendrickson was in red numbers entering the ninth hole, only to see the Redhawks' Ryan Whittingham steal the show down the stretch.
The Naperville Central had red-number holes on seven and eight and capitalized on the Huskies' twin poor drives on the home hole to earn medalist honors with a 1-under-par 35. But the collective 73 fired by Nelson and Hendrickson, combined with critical play from the bottom of the Huskies' lineup, propelled Naperville North to a 154-157 DuPage Valley Conference victory.
Naperville North (4-1, 3-1) stayed a match behind league frontrunner Wheaton Warrenville South; Naperville Central is 3-2, 3-2.
"It's a friendly rivalry," said Whittingham, who missed only one green in regulation to post his medalist round.
"It brings out really good play from everyone. I was thinking (Nelson) was going to birdie every hole."
The Naperville North junior had a birdie-birdie start, and two other birdie efforts lipped out over the next three holes. Hendrickson, meanwhile, followed up an all-world par on the fifth with consecutive birdies on the sixth and seventh holes to join Nelson in red. But Whittingham and teammate Stefan Grochowski both birdied the eighth hole, and routine pars at the last kept Naperville Central to within a shot (73-74) as Grochowski finished with a 39. Nelson led Naperville North with a level-par 36, and Hendrickson fired a 37.
"It wasn't so much the lip outs (that cost me momentum)," Nelson said. "I didn't get up and down like I could have (on 7 and 9)."
"The ones and twos really put on a show," Naperville North coach Ryan Hantak said. With the meet still in the balance, the Huskies' depth prevailed. Eighth-man Ryan Gottschalk came in with a 40, and Nick Buege and Mike Cavuto had 41s to conclude the Huskies' scoring.
"Ryan Gottschalk was a last-minute decision (for the final spot)," Hantak said.
"It's nice to see how deep our team is," Matt Smith (41) and Jeremy Dlabal (42) closed out the Redhawks' card. "We need better scores than we got today," Naperville Central coach Barry Baldwin said.
- Kevin McGavin