Girls soccer: Defending champs stop St. Charles North
The St. Charles North girls soccer team learned a valuable lesson in pursuit of its first state finals appearance since 2012.
When you leave the door open just a little bit too much for a 2-time defending state champion, at some point they're going to squeeze their way through. The host Trevians totaled 9 corner kicks in its 1-0 Class 3A New Trier supersectional win over St. Charles North at Robert Naughton Field Tuesday, and on the seventh did it finally come alive.
That moment came in the 54th minute when the Illinois-bound, Gatorade Player of the Year Kelly Maday lofted her 17th assist from the right corner that found some part of Sydney Parker's body in front the crease. Parker helped guide the ball just inside the right post for the game-winner, which marked the third straight state appearance for the Trevians (25-3-1).
"They're a dangerous team on corners and we got burned on one of them and in this game one is all it takes," North Stars coach Brian Harks said. "That's a really good team and they had extremely structured and organized sets and they're aggressive in the air."
New Trier, who avenged a 1-0 loss to North in a PepsiCo Showdown friendly on April 16, moves on to a Class 3A state semifinal against Huntley at North Central College in Naperville at 5 p.m. Friday.
St. Charles North (20-4-1), who ended its season with an undefeated Upstate Eight River title as well as regional and sectional plaques, saw New Trier earn 5 corners, all kicked by Maday, in the first half that luckily at the time, were unsuccessful. Two from Parker went wide of the post and one saw Parker's shot stuffed by keeper Sami Sample, who totaled 7 saves.
"We were getting to them, we were putting dangerous balls in there," said Trevians coach Jim Burnside, who put it into drive the final 50 minutes with a strong attack. "The girls have worked so hard on them and we've switched it up with a little different corner and they ran it to perfection."
Once Parker and Maday finally connected, the final 26 minutes set up perfectly for New Trier, who hasn't given up a goal in the postseason since 2013.
"That whole they're New Trier team, there's a reason they're the two-time defending state champions," Harks added. "That's a team that's been in this situation before and they rose to the occasion."
St. Charles North totaled just 9 shots, including just 3 on frame and 1 in the second half. Hailey Rydberg had 2 corner attempts in the final 12 minutes. Their best opportunity came on Rydberg's corner to Lauren Muzzalupo, who was clutch in the win against Bartlett. She had her shot from inside the box stuffed by New Trier keeper Dani Kaufman.
"When it comes down to these sort of games, you're not scoring 5 or 6 goals," Sample said. "It comes down to that one you finish and they just capitalized tonight."
"New Trier is a very good team and in all regions of their offense they could get the ball from us and we did give them one too many," midfielder Morgan Rerko said. "They probably deserved to get that result. I thought we just had more momentum in the first game. They wanted it more than we did."