Girls soccer: Lynde heads Naperville North past Metea Valley

Cam Lynde has dreamed of playing college soccer ever since she started playing the game.

While her dream will come true when she plays left back at Drury University after she graduates from Naperville North, this spring she’s playing up top for the Huskies.

Lynde headed in a free kick from Zara Hasan on Thursday night to lift the Huskies to a 1-0 win over visiting Metea Valley in a DuPage Valley Conference game.

“I mean, I feel like I’ve lived my whole entire life since I started soccer to play at the next level,” she said, “My dad always asked the question to know how far to push me to play and I always have. It’s a little different. I’m committed to be a left back, so in high school it’s different but I’m learning to be able to battle up top and hold the ball and be strong doing something I’m going to need for college, and I feel we have a lot of commits on our team. We’re all working together to push each other to play to the next level and keep improving.”

Hasan’s precision was evident.

“Zara has been doing amazing of getting the ball all the way up to me,” Lynde said. “A couple of times I have not been able to complete the shot so I knew today I had to finish one of her free kicks. She’s doing an amazing job, placing it and almost scoring a couple times. I don’t think we could have a better free-kick-taker than her.”

The Huskies (5-2-1, 2-0) need to find offense. Lynde has become an option.

"I thought Cam did a better job in the second half of holding the ball up for us and being able to play,” Huskies coach Steve Goletz said. “And she’s a tall kid. She strikes a good ball with her left foot and the hope is that we need to get more balls whipped in the box, more chances on goal. And so last year we kind of moved her up there to give Claire (DeCook) a break periodically, and this year she had kind of stepped into a bigger role that she assumed because she is somebody that has been around and knows what we expect up there, and is continuing to get better and better. We’re going to need her to get better to really try to compete with the best teams in the state.”

Naperville North suffered a 2-1 loss to Libertyville on Monday and tied Lyons on Wednesday.

“Obviously a super tough stretch,” Goletz said, “Malnati’s is always something we enjoy doing but something you’ve got to be very good, and have to be able to replicate it. It’s very similar to a state playoff run where you got to beat good team after good team. We won tonight and I thought we played the worst we played over the course of the week which is just ironic and a little bit of how soccer works.”

Metea Valley (0-5-1, 0-2) continues to search for scoring.

“I was talking to a friend of mine and they were asking about our game on Monday and I go ‘Sometimes our scores look a little lopsided but our girls are competing,’’ Mustangs coach Chris Whaley said. “If you look at the run of the play, for the most part, a lot of our games are a lot closer than you would anticipate.”

Practices have proven successful.

“So the last couple days just in practice we just pushed them and told them we are going to work on these things and not going to give up,” Whaley said. “And they came out today, and the girls competed well. We’re still obviously trying to find a way to score, but the girls have battled in close games. They are good kids and they work hard, trying to get a little better each week.”