Girls soccer: Huntley blanks Hersey to win own tourney title
While Huntley built a 2-0 lead over Hersey with a ferocious wind at its back in a solid opening half, its second half performance against the wind was even more impressive.
The Red Raiders maintained possession and controlled play for the majority of the final 40 minutes by keeping the ball low and connecting passes.
They allowed Hersey just two harmless shots on goal and collected the 2-0 victory in Saturday's championship game of the Huntley Invite.
"The second half was probably the best half we've played," said Huntley coach Kris Grabner. "Just moving the ball and moving off the ball. We've been trying to rush forward and we finally got to slow down a little bit, so that helped a lot."
"The conditions were so awful, but I thought we did really well playing on the ground and finding the open spaces," said Huntley senior Taryn Jakubowski, who assisted on the game's first goal and tallied the only goal in the Red Raiders' 1-0 win over Boylan in the morning's semifinal match.
"Because we're so young and inexperienced varsity wise it was more about trying to keep shape and our tactical awareness on how we play the game," said Hersey coach Darren Llewellyn.
Huntley (3-1-1) kept the Huskies pinned in their own end the entire first half and grabbed the lead in the 17th minute when Alyssa Kaufman deflected Jakubowski's corner kick into the right corner of the net.
"With the wind, Grabner told me I should hit it with my left so it curls in. I've been doing that lately and this one paid off," said Jakubowksi, who takes corners from the opposite end with her right foot.
The Red Raiders' high pressure paid dividends in the 29th minute when Yulissa Solis stepped in front of keeper Andrea Canon's attempted outlet pass and quickly fired a shot into the top right corner.
"We just put Yulissa in and told her if you get a chance rip it, because she can hit the daylights out of the ball," Grabner said.
"Even against the wind it was good for us facing their ability," Llewellyn said. "If you give them a slip or you break down in the middle, they're going to beat you."
Hersey (3-4-1) started strong in the opening 10 minutes of the second half, but missed wide on a pair of free kicks. From there, Huntley regained control of the match.
"We didn't put the ball where we needed to put it to get pressure," Llewellyn said. "For some reason we'd get the ball and just try to settle and pass it. The best thing would have been to play the wind and pin them in."
It was still a successful tournament for the Huskies, who downed Harlem 2-1 in Saturday morning's semifinal match behind goals from Claire Callahan and Grace Kozurek.
"I thought Harlem was a pretty good team and Hononegah was the other night. Those were two good games against teams with equal ability that really helped us," Llewellyn said.
After opening the season with a loss to Lake Zurich and a tie with Palatine, Huntley is finding its stride with three consecutive wins.
"I think we've progressed so much from the first game to now. We can only get better," Jakubowski said.