Fox Valley captain: Huntley's Aimee Wronski

Huntley junior forward Aimee Wronski worked on keeping her head held high this season.

"If I miss a shot, I know my team has my back," said Wronski. "Instead of keeping my head down, I know I can make the next one."

Wronski made the next one quite often this season.

The all-state selection barreled home a career-high 29 goals to go with 11 assists in helping Huntley go 21-4-1 (9-1 in Fox Valley Conference Valley Division play). Her outstanding season also brings with it the honor of being named the Honorary Co-Captain of the Daily Herald's All-Area girls soccer team.

"She is definitely a game-changer, for sure," said Crystal Lake South coach Brian Allen, whose team butted heads with Huntley twice during conference play this season.

"She is a completely different player from her sophomore season. She had more of a killer instinct and if you gave her any space at all, whatsoever, she would make you pay. She single-handedly willed her team to certain victories and hit a 35-yard bomb against us the first time because we gave her 2 feet of space instead of 1 foot. She made us pay even from that distance."

Wronski, who has already verbally committed to play at Illinois State, has seen her offensive output rise in each of her 3 years on Harmony Road. She had 17 goals and 4 assists as a freshman and bumped that number up to 20 goals and 14 assists last year. She'll enter her senior season with career numbers of 66 goals and 29 assists. She's averaged 1 goal a game over her first 3 seasons.

"I do a lot of shooting in practice," said Wronski, also an all-FVC, all-Pepsi Showdown and all-sectional selection this season. "I make sure that if I'm close to the net, I don't pound it in. I just shoot it. Thinking before shooting helps me a lot. Seeing where people are going and knowing when to shoot and when to pass is important."

It also doesn't hurt being one of the fastest players on the field.

"I'm fast," admitted Wronski. "My speed is probably one of my strongest things. When I get a shot off, I hit it pretty hard, but my speed is my best strength."

Wronski uses that speed intelligently.

"I'm not only quick, but I make sure I keep the ball under control while I'm running with it," said Wronski. "There is a lot to it."

Huntley coach Kris Grabner, who Wronski praised for his work with the team, recalls a particular goal his star player scored this season.

"She received the ball on the sideline and carried it 15 yards up and then probably went 45-50 yards across the field before releasing the shot from 28 or 29 yards out," recalled Grabner. "She had at least 3 defenders on her. She picked two off and had one to beat. She buried it. That's what she does."

Wronski downplayed the particular goal.

"If I have a chance to take the ball across the 18 and get a shot off, I'll do it," said Wronski, who was also fond of a postseason goal she scored against Barrington in similar fashion. "If not, I'm going to pass. It just worked out that way."

While some prolific offensive scorers in sports prefer to keep racking up the numbers, Wronski is fine with giving up the ball to her teammates.

"Assists are really good," said Wronski, who plays for the Crystal Lake Force club team. "I love helping the team by passing. Scoring goals is my job. If I have the opportunity to do that, I'm going to take it. But I also like helping my teammates get involved in that."

Grabner was effusive in his praise of what Wronski meant to the Red Raiders this season.

"She was huge," said Grabner. "There were games when we needed energy or we needed some type of motivation and she would raise us up and she brought us up. That first game against Crystal Lake South at their place, late in that game she was everywhere. She put the whole team on her back and basically said we are going to win this game. She was like that all year.

"The number-one thing with her is her attitude. She doesn't stop. She has great strength and great feet."

Grabner added that the physical skills Wronski possesses are somewhat uncommon in the girls game.

"She can strike a ball with either foot from around 35 yards out and score, no problem," said Grabner. "Her ability to cut a ball back and accelerate out of it is rare in the girls game. You don't see girls cut and accelerate the way she does. She makes it easy to win games. Without her we lose that absolute threat that at any point of the game she could breakaway at midfield. She's a player that changes the game at any instance."

Wronski's older sister, Corinne, who recently graduated from Huntley and will play at Upper Iowa next season (she's currently recovering from ACL surgery), feels her sister's true talents run beyond on her physical strength.

"She has a lot of strengths, not just with the size of her muscles," said Corinne. "She has a lot of drive and determination to score and win as much as possible."

Corinne is impressed with how her sister excels, despite the opposition keying on her on a constant basis.

"It's the fact they know how fast she is and they try and stop her and still can't," she said. "She knows the game so well and can see what is ahead of her. She knows how to get the ball to people or she knows what to do with it."

But to Aimee Wronski, it's all part of the game.

"I play my game and I play hard no mater how good the team we are playing is or how much they are after me," said Wronski, who would like to study nursing in college.

And if they are after her, she'll either put one in the net or gladly find an open teammate.

"We have such a good group of girls," said Wronski. "We all get along very well and Grabner is a very good coach. It's been such a good experience. Everybody brings a very strong energy to the game and to the team."

Wronski, who has been part of three Huntley teams that have gone a combined 66-8-2 (28-2 in league games), noted she's come a long way since the days of playing as a child.

"I played for the little kiddie kickers with pigtails," she laughed. "I love the game. I love the aggressiveness. I want to play soccer my whole life. I like where I've gotten with it."

And she still has plenty of places where the game can take her.

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<li><a href="/pdf/foxgirlssoccerfront10.pdf">Fox Valley all-area team Page 1</a></li>

<li><a href="/pdf/foxgirlssoccerteam10.pdf">Fox Valley all-area team Page 2</a></li>

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