Girls soccer: Naperville Central rallies past Huskies, into sectional final
Emma Russell saw something.
Emerson Burke saw Russell.
The two Naperville Central girls soccer players saw the way to connect on a pair of second half corner kick goals and the Redhawks season will see another day after a 2-1 victory over Naperville North in Wednesday’s Class 3A Plainfield North sectional semifinal.
The Huskies (13-6-4) saw their lengthy unbeaten streak against the Redhawks come to an end.
The Redhawks (13-5-1) advance to face Plainfield North in Friday’s sectional finals. The Tigers upset previously-undefeated Lockport, 2-1, in the earlier semifinal.
“We looked at the corner kicks on film (on Tuesday) and we kind of saw the zone mark,” Russell said. “They don’t man mark like we do. They kind of pick up different zones and they leave the back post open. They kind of guard the front post mostly.”
Trailing 1-0 with just under 22 minutes remaining, Burke took what she heard from Russell during the halftime break and applied it. The result was the equalizer as her corner kick went past the far post just as planned.
“Just finding the open player is our motto this whole season,” Burke said. “Just finding a player on every single play. It’s what we’ve been doing and what we’ve been doing best.”
Seeing a way to optimize her role, Russell took it.
“I told my team at halftime that I notice in practice I’m always the person who drops back to the end to kind of clear, pick up anything that goes over.,” Russell said. “My job is usually to head it across back to someone who can finish it again. I started noticing in that half I was like I would back up and was completely open so I told Emerson (Burke) if you can find me on the back post I’m wide open and they did it the first time.”
With just under 12 minutes remaining that same duo collaborated again. Déjà vu had struck.
“They left me open again,” Russell said. “Fine by me.”
She just couldn’t believe it.
“It was easy to be open,” she said. “I’m surprised they did it the second time because it was the same goal. I would be so upset if a team scored the exact same goal twice, especially in a game like this.”
The Huskies enjoyed a 1-0 lead in the 23rd minute as Claire DeCook drilled yet another of her jaw-dropping goals, curling in almost a 30-yard strike.
“I thought we created a ton of chances and got unlucky on a couple,” Huskies coach Steve Goletz said. “And restarts are so important in the game and we stress them so much and we got beat on two of them - two great hits.”
The Huskies were hoping for a rematch against the Tigers who ended their season in the sectional semis last May.
“This sectional is obviously impossible, right? And credit to these kids for continuing to grind through it and give it their best,” Goletz said. “I thought we were good tonight.“
The Huskies and Redhawks battled to a scoreless draw in a rain-shortened match on May 2.
The Redhawks hadn’t beaten the Huskies since winning on PKs in the Naperville Invite on April 28, 2012.