Girls soccer: Huntley rallies to tie Boylan
Matt Lewandowski’s halftime speech to Huntley on Wednesday evening had a simple message: run hard and opportunities will happen.
Senior Peyton Kohn understood the assignment.
Kohn made a push on a ball late in the Red Raiders’ match against Boylan Catholic and scored. That late push helped the Red Raiders end their opening match of the Huntley Invitational in a 1-1 draw.
“I didn’t even know it was going in honestly,” Kohn said. “I toe-poked it, and it went in.”
Kohn’s goal capped a second half that Huntley (0-1-2) controlled despite trailing 1-0. The Titans (1-2-2) weathered some strong Red Raider looks at the start of the second half before Johanna Hawley scored with 27:37 left in the match.
Despite the deficit, Huntley still listened to Lewandowski’s halftime message. The Red Raiders had a strong scoring chance a couple minutes after falling behind on a cross pass that went too high. Huntley had three shots on goal and a corner kick before finally breaking through.
Kohn ran toward the front of the net before putting a touch on Maddie Cummings’ cross pass. She got just enough of the ball, and it rolled slowly past the goal line to tie the match with 13:12 left.
The Red Raiders withstood a late push in the final 10 minutes to end the match in a draw.
“It was a good, hard push to end the game strong,” Kohn said.
That push was a drastic change from what happened in the first half. The Red Raiders couldn’t keep up with the Titans’ aggressive style and turned the ball over once Huntley got into Boylan’s third of the pitch.
Huntley had one shot on goal in the first half.
“They really collapsed on us well,” Kohn said. “I think we couldn’t cross the ball in to get those toe-pokes or headers or anything. We needed a better cross in.”
Lewandowski was proud to see Huntley respond in the second half. The Red Raiders have tried to find new scoring options after graduating a majority of their goal scorers from last season’s team.
Although Huntley could’ve scored on a few more chances after controlling much of the second half, Lewandowski was impressed to see a strong-character performance early in the season.
“To go down and then come back in the second half to even it out is indicative of our character we’ll have this season,” Lewandowski said.
Huntley will try to pick up its first win of the season by continuing what it started in the second half Wednesday. They’ll get their next chance against Auburn on Thursday and Larkin on Saturday.
“It’s always trying to be like that,” Kohn said. “Sometimes you get really slow. I think the second-half intensity is how we want to play each game.”