Huntley savors 4th straight regional title
ROCKFORD - With 40 shots, Huntley needed something more to show than its 1-0 lead over Rockford Guilford.
The Red Raiders used the final 7 minutes and 45 seconds of Friday night's game to pour on 3 goals and claim the Class 3A Rockford Jefferson regional girls soccer championship with a 4-0 victory over the Vikings.
The win marks the fourth-straight regional crown for Huntley (21-3-1), which will now face Barrington in the 7 p.m. semifinal of Tuesday's Class 3A Rockford Boylan sectional. Barrington knocked off Lake Zurich 1-0 in overtime Friday to win the Barrington regional title.
The Red Raiders are hoping the final minutes of Friday's contest are able to carry over.
"We just wanted to finish the game off," said the Red Raiders' Aimee Wronski, who finished the game with a pair of goals to bring her season total to 28. "We were all tired and trying to keep each other's heads up."
Priscilla Jara gave Huntley a 2-0 lead when she headed a ball in with 7:45 left. Jara took a pass from Emily Konior (2 assists) and bounced it past Guilford goalkeeper Taylor Mattingly.
"We knew that if we got one goal, that it would help our chances later on," Jara said. "I think we really picked it up. We were in it."
The Red Raiders then went up 3-0 on Wronski's second goal when she took a pass from Bre Burry and sprinted 20 yards past the Guilford defenders to connect on a line-drive shot into the back of the net with 2:30 left in the game.
Wronski initially put Huntley up 1-0 in a similar fashion. After taking a pass from Konior, the speedy Wronski outran a pair of Guilford defenders to obtain a wide-open shot, which she drilled past Mattingly with 21:48 left in the first half. Before the goal, Huntley had shot the ball 11 times, but failed to connect. The Red Raiders finished the first half with 20 shots, 10 on goal but only led 1-0 at halftime.
"We had 20 shots in the first half and 10 on frame," Red Raiders coach Kris Grabner said. "The shots were coming from too far out. We got a little impatient in that final third (of the field)."
Mattingly didn't help much either. The Guilford freshman stopped 9 shots in the first half and finished with 19 saves in the game. Huntley goalkeeper Sara Hoffman finished with just 2 saves.
But as brilliant as she was for the first 77 minutes and 30 seconds Huntley found a way to get to Mattingly in the final 2:30.
After Wronski's second goal, Rachel Chapius added the final touch with a header goal with 1:59 left in the game. She took a corner kick from Burry and headed it past Mattingly to give the Red Raiders their final 4-0 margin.