Naperville North shuts out Naperville Central
Naperville North is still undefeated.
The Huskies received a pair of goals from Evan Trychta to beat Naperville Central 2-0 in a crucial DuPage Valley Conference match in front of a boisterous crowd Thursday evening at Naperville North.
Naperville North’s Lee Grander sent a long pass from beyond midfield to set up Trychta’s first goal in the 16th minute. Kyle Lindberg flicked the ball to Trychta who played it off his chest to get position ahead of a defender before blasting it into the back of the net.
”We were fortunate that Evan was composed and the ball fell in the back post and he tucks it away,” Naperville North coach Jim Konrad said. “He’s a big-time kid. He hasn’t scored a lot of goals this year, but you know when the game is on the line Evan’s going to come through.”
Judging by the frantic pace of play, it was easy to tell that this was another chapter in the local Naperville soccer rivalry. Both teams had a handful of opportunities in the opening half, but other than Trychta’s goal, neither team put a great deal of pressure on each other’s goalkeeper.
“There are certain games during the year where you don’t have to say much,” Naperville Central coach Troy Adams said. “They’ve been looking forward to this game for a long time. It was a nice combination of we’re having a good season, they’re having a good season and the weather couldn’t have cooperated better.”
Naperville Central (12-2-0, 4-1-0) never was able to score the equalizer, but the Redhawks put a good deal of pressure on Huskies defenders Max Auden, Neil Wiaranowski, Matt Vogel, Lee Grander and Zach Fischmann. Still, the Huskies posted their 12th shutout of the year.
“It was important for us to stay as a unit with our defense,” Vogel said. “They really came at us, and we haven’t faced a team that plays that kind of style before. It was good to see because we’ll see a lot of that in the playoffs and we were able to take care of it tonight.”
Naperville North (15-0-1, 4-0-0) thwarted a handful of the visitors scoring chances in the second half to preserve the 1-0 lead.
“I thought the whole second half went well,” Adams said. “We played in spurts in the first half. We’d get 3-4 minutes and then give away 10. We were more consistent in the second half, really with doing a better job of playing our style of game, keeping the ball on the ground and trying to make some combination play.”
Unfortunately for the Redhawks, it never resulted in scoring the equalizer.
Trychta added his second goal of the night, and eighth of the season, with 3.3 seconds remaining. It was the first time this season that the Redhawks surrendered more than a single goal in a contest.