Neuqua Valley throws winning play together

Neuqua Valley defined what it is to bend without breaking Tuesday in Naperville at the Best of the West tournament.

Despite being bottled up for most of the game, a new throw-in play was the perfect tonic to give Neuqua Valley just enough breathing room to defeat Naperville North 1-0.

Neuqua Valley (2-0-1) came out sound, possessing the ball for the first 15 minutes of the game. However, Naperville North (1-1) responded with a flurry of chances that either sailed just high, or were gobbled up by Wildcats' goalkeeper Hunter Hollingshead.

"Hunter made a couple of nice punches and his timing is coming around after he spent the summer injured," Neuqua Valley coach Tony Kees said. "He's picking his spots and fighting his way through a crowd."

With Hollingshead holding down the fort in goal with a series of spectacular diving and sliding saves, the game remained scoreless heading into halftime. The second half opened with the teams playing cautiously until the Huskies added pressure that almost culminated with a goal on a shot that deflected over Hollingshead toward a gaping net. The ball barely bounced over the crossbar.

Neuqua Valley tilted the field back its way as sustained pressure led to a throw-in deep in the Huskies' territory. Senior A.K. Karkazis received the throw-in and placed a beautiful pass to the back post where multiple Wildcats converged. Midfielder Jacob Brindle crashed the box and put a sliding shot in to give Neuqua Valley a 1-0 lead with 20 minutes left to play.

"It was a newly designed thrown-in play," Brindle said. "We have a target and we throw it in there, then flick it back post where all of us are crashing. We didn't get toward the goal enough today but we finished when we needed to."

"We drew it up yesterday," Kees said of the game-winning goal. "It's nice when that occurs, but I hope we don't have to live on the dead ball all season."

Naperville North would not be deterred easily though, as it went back on the attack following the Wildcats' goal. With 13 minutes to play midfielder Kyle Lindberg received a deflection off a corner kick that he headed off the crossbar, which proved to be the Huskies' best chance to tie the game.

Naperville North kept the pressure on the remaining 10 minutes, but Hollingshead got a few more game-saving stops off multiple corner kicks to preserve the victory for Neuqua Valley.

"We definetly stressed that we wanted to hold the lead the last 10 minutes," Hollingshead said. "We had some troubles but we cleared it and kept the game under control."

Despite severly outchancing Neuqua Valley, Naperville North coach Jim Konrad stressed to his players to not get complacent, and that is exactly what happened as Neuqua Valley capitalized on one of the few positioning errors the Huskies made all day.

"Besides that one chance, they really didn't have good chances on goal, but we need to do a better job of finishing and not falling sleep," Konrad said. "Against Neuqua you're not going to get chance after chance. You get your two to four good chances and you have to bury one."