Naperville Central one step closer to goal

NORMAL — Naperville Central coach Troy Adams doesn’t think his team has accomplished anything yet.

Some may disagree with Adams, especially after the Redhawks (18-4) punched their ticket to the Class 3A state semifinals with a 2-0 win over Quincy at the Normal supersectional at Normal Community High School on Tuesday night.

“I think (our players) are on Cloud 9 right now,” Adams said. “But if you ask them to finish the phrase, ‘We haven’t...,’ then they will finish that with, ‘We haven’t accomplished anything yet.’ We’ve still got a couple more games to go, and every game gets harder as you go through this tournament.”

The Redhawks might not have reached their goal just yet, but Tuesday a goal in each half helped them take the next step toward a state title.

Naperville Central jumped ahead with just more than 14 minutes left in the first half thanks to a header by senior forward Greg Burdett following a struggle for possession in front of Quincy’s goal.

The Redhawks kept the pressure on in the second half, which eventually led to a Jay Tegge goal with 7:13 remaining in the game. The sophomore buried the shot from 30 yards out to all but end Quincy’s chances.

According to Tegge, Adams told his team at halftime to keep the pressure on Quincy’s defense.

“We wanted to just keep doing what we were doing,” Tegge said. “They’re an attacking team and very good offensively, so we had to mark their key players and just make sure the ball didn’t find our net.”

To Adams, despite his team playing with the lead, the only way to approach the second half was to play as if the game were tied.

“We’ve learned from watching that 1-0 can quickly become 1-1,” Adams said. “It’s hard to switch that mentality from defending to, ‘Oh now we’ve got to attack.’ We decided instead we were going to come out and we were going to get a second goal.”

The Redhawks advance to the Class 3A state semifinals at 5 p.m. Friday when they will take on Fremd at Lincoln-Way North High School in Frankfort.

“We are going to take tomorrow and take Thursday to prepare and come out to face a very good Fremd team,” Adams said. “That one should give us 80 minutes of battle.”

The Redhawks hope to take one more step toward the celebration they want to have.