Boys soccer: St. Charles North blanks Kaneland in opener

Keeping cool under pressure is probably easier said than done in a soccer match.

St. Charles North made it look easy despite just taking the field for the first time this year during Monday night's 2-0 victory against Kaneland.

Despite being stuck in a tug-of-war scoreless battle with the Knights for 65 minutes, the North Stars kept their composure. They may have become a little frustrated but by no means did they panic, even after hitting posts and rattling the crossbar, recognizing that if they kept on attacking they'd eventually finish.

"We talked about it at the end of the game how we had composure with 17-18 minutes left even after hitting balls off the crossbar and narrowly missing goal-scoring opportunities," North Stars coach Eric Willson said. "Sometimes teams can get frustrated in that spot and go away from what they do well. I was really happy to see us keep knocking on the door and stay patient."

That patience paid off for North Stars junior Sam Strader who notched his first varsity goal with 15:58 remaining, pouncing on a carom off of Kaneland keeper Maison Kerl from a cross by senior teammate Nolan Sinnaeve.

"It feels great," Strader said. "It felt really good actually to be with all my new teammates, all the varsity guys celebrating with me."

Strader spent some time with the varsity team late last year, but now he's here to stay and excited for what's in store after such a great debut.

"We felt like the goal was going to come and just believed in each other," he said. "I feel like we dominated the whole game and through the season I believe we're just going to get better and better as a team, especially after just this first game."

Kaneland's accustomed to the North Stars putting them away late in games. That's become an unfortunate trend for the Knights the last few seasons, but this time they really hung with them until it really got late.

"I thought we played well," Knights coach Scott Parillo said. "Not perfect, but for 65 minutes we were 0-0. Obviously I wish we would've won or tied, but this was good for us."

Surrendering an unassisted goal to senior Faizan Mohiuddin with 10:17 basically ended Kaneland's chances of responding with an equalizer.

"Once we got that first one, we got the confidence we needed," Mohiuddin said. "And that gave us the confidence to get a second one which took the pressure off."

As a 2A school, games against formidable 3A schools can help a team like Kaneland as long as the morale remains positive even if the results aren't such.

"We told them that our first games of the season are pretty dang tough, but if we can hang with these teams we should be OK," Parillo said. "We have to stay injury-free but we can be OK. In the past we've usually been tied at halftime and then they blow us out of the water. They didn't do that this time."