Waubonsie, Central reach title match
Naperville Central and Waubonsie Valley will meet Saturday in the title game of this year's Naperville Invitational, with Waubonsie chasing its third consecutive Invite title.
"It's exciting, being my senior year and being in the title game again," Waubonsie's Rachel Bostick said. "And we get another chance at Central."
Naperville Central (14-2-2) beat two-time defending state champion Waubonsie Valley (10-3) 1-0 during the season's first week, ending an unbeaten streak that spanned two previous seasons.
The Redhawks have gutted out close games with good defense and opportunistic scoring this year, and they maximized their scoring chances in a 2-0 semifinal win over Naperville North on Saturday.
The Redhawks had 2 shots on net, and finished on them both, with Gina Maddi and Amanda Knezovich scoring second-half goals.
Hillary Scott crossed a ball to the top of the penalty area, where Knezovich settled it, spun and fired.
"I just looked up, looked for the goal, saw where the goalie wasn't and aimed for that," Knezovich said.
North (11-2-2) and Central tied 1-1 in their regular-season meeting this year, and Redhawks coach Ed Watson liked what he saw the second time around.
"It was certainly more them than us in the first half," Watson said. "But I thought the second half was as good as we're going to play. We had some quality chances at a shot against them that we didn't have in the first game."
The Naperville Central defense earned its 13th shutout with the win - only the third time all season that Naperville North has failed to score in a game. Defenders Alex Coon and Jessica Rubin have stood out, and goalkeeper Jill D'Amico has kept an airtight lid on net.
Naperville Central reached the semifinals thanks to a 1-0 win over Downers Grove South (11-5) in Saturday's early game, on a 50-yard free kick goal by Coon.
Waubonsie and Fremd (11-3-1) squared off in a rematch of last year's title game, with the Warriors getting a goal from Bostick and an overtime goal from Ali Stahlke in a 2-1 win.
After a long free kick by Bri Rodriguez toward the goalmouth, Vanessa DiBernardo headed a ball back out to Bostick, who buried it from 14 yards out.
Stahlke followed up a shot from long range and finished at the goalmouth, just 20 seconds into the first overtime period to give Waubonsie the win.
"Those are the easiest goals you can get," Stahlke said. "We talked about that before overtime - 'crash the net, crash the net' - and I just kept hearing Rachel saying that in my mind. So that's what I did."