Granite City edges Naperville North for 3A title
Seconds after the Class 3A girls soccer state championship game ended at Naperville Central’s Memorial Stadium, many of the Naperville North players looked like they had been punched in the stomach.
Being oh-so-close to a state championship and not grabbing it tends to give one that feeling.
But as downstate Granite City celebrated its first girls soccer state title, thanks to a 1-0 victory, Naperville North coach Brent Terada gathered his players around to remind them that despite the pain of Saturday night, the 2011 season will go down as one of the best in team history.
“Don’t you dare hang your heads,” he told them in the huddle.
The second-place finish is the sixth state trophy earned by the team in school history. The last one came in 2004 in Class AA as the Huskies placed fourth.
Naperville North (18-6-1) was looking for its first state title since 1988, when coach Al Harris, one of the IHSA game operations personnel for this season’s finals, led the Huskies to the IHSA’s first state championship in the sport.
One of the things that the Huskies can look back on is that when the smoke cleared in the Waubonsie Valley sectional they were the team still playing. The fourth-seeded hosts, the defending 3A champ, didn’t survive.
Second-seeded Naperville North stopped third-seeded Naperville Central and in what will go down as the biggest game of the season, the Huskies sent home top-seeded Neuqua Valley, the best team in the state at the time, in the sectional final.
“I thought we owed it to our sectional to win this. Everyone called it the ‘sectional of death’ and we beat Neuqua Valley,” Naperville North senior Kirsten Anderson said.
Anderson, like Terada and others on the team, had no regrets about the team’s level of play or effort.
“We played absolutely awesome. We had great opportunities, but we couldn’t put them away,” she said.
Granite City (20-6) got the goal that turned out to be the difference at the 39:27 mark of the first half. Kaitlin Becherer’s shot was out of the reach of Naperville North goalkeeper Abby Green.
“It came down to a fluke shot from them. But any shot that goes in in the state finals is great,” Terada said. “It was at a tough angle, about from 35 yards out. We did everything we could,” Terada said. “The state finals are about great teams. They did what they did and we did what we did.
“We worked hard, battled and traded opportunities. That’s how soccer goes,” he said.
In the first half sophomore Zoe Swift was catalyst of the Naperville North offense almost from the game’s start, going on several breakaways along the right wing in the game’s first 40 minutes.
Her best scoring opportunity came about 12 minutes in, when the Warriors defense failed to clear the ball. However, a Granite City defender checked her off the ball in a physical moment of what was a physical game.
The Warriors never pressured the Huskies’ defense up close in the first half. Green made skillful saves on 25- and 40-yard shots during the first half.
Again, there was some sadness at not winning as the Huskies left their field with their second-place trophy and medals, but not at the effort given.
“We played hard for 80 minutes. I’m proud of every single play,” senior Jamie Meno said.