Girls soccer: Neuqua Valley shines in DVC opener, hands Naperville Central its 1st loss
Miabelli Kraai is digging the vibe at Neuqua Valley.
The Wildcats were relishing her first goal of the season during Tuesday’s 2-1 victory at Naperville Central in the DuPage Valley Conference opener.
“I’m really excited for this season,” Kraai said. “Everybody wants to play and be here. Nobody is missing practice and everybody is putting in 100% and working for each other and we’re really, really close as a team.”
Kraai received a pass from Alexis May and sent it into the back of the net with 34:48 remaining in the first half.
May would then set up senior Selma Larbi with 22:48 still to play in the opening half.
“Alexis is very consistent,” Larbi said. “She is really good at finding the open players. I knew when she started dribbling I had to position myself kind of near post so I could get to the ball first and thankfully the ball went right to me.”
One-touch precision from the Yale recruit produced the finish.
“I was just like, you know what? I don’t want to second guess, take another touch, draw a defender in and bring the goalie out, I’m just going to one-touch and position my body to the far post and thankfully it went in.”
The Wildcats (5-1, 1-0) didn’t have a lot of chances, but enjoyed a fantastic success rate.
“We are definitely working on putting away our chances this year,” Kraai said. “Last year we struggled to finish.”
Kraai played varsity as a freshman last year, but it’s her first time playing with Larbi who returned this season.
“She is so technical on the ball and is a great human off the field,” Kraai said. “It’s always great to have her on the field and she’s one of our leaders, one of our captains.”
Naperville Central (6-1-1, 0-1) has been plagued by slow starts in games, but had overcome it.
“A lot of the things that went against us tonight aren’t new,” Redhawks coach Troy Adams said. “We’ve seen them and had them, we just haven’t faced a team that’s been able to expose it when it happens. And that start of the game type thing — we have not started games well and I’ve said, ‘Girls we’ve got to be able to play 80 minutes.’ Tonight they outworked us those first 20 minutes.”
Junior Nicole Smith lined a 23-yard shot inside the far post with just under three minutes remaining to pull the Redhawks within 2-1. Sophomore Emerson Burke battled the ball away from Wildcats senior goalkeeper Elizabeth Fried in the final two minutes, but was whistled for a foul to end their threat of an equalizer.