Naperville North advances

Naperville North took care of business Tuesday night, advancing to the Class 3A Naperville North regional final with a solid 4-0 victory against Plainfield North.

The second-seeded Huskies spread the scoring around, with first-half goals from Zach Peterson and Neil Wiaranowski getting things going against the 15th-seeded Tigers.

“With the wind (coming in over the south goal) we were concerned,” Huskies coach Jim Konrad said. “We heard a lot of great things about Plainfield North, that they’re athletic, that they’ve got some skill kids, a little bit younger. We knew it wasn’t going to be one of those regionals where you just walked through. We knew it would be a game.”

The Huskies (15-3) put the game away in the second half. Joe Sullivan scored on a 60th-minute blast, and Grant Lesak cleaned up with another shot seven minutes later.

“We really needed that third goal because going into the wind I was worried,” Konrad said. “The first half they had some kids take some long-range shots. I thought they were dangerous. I was worried if they get that goal on us, all of a sudden they’re going into the wind, they start shooting, anything can happen. When we got snuck third one in, I felt, OK, it’s going to take a lot for us to give up three goals.”

It was the fourth consecutive shutout for the Huskies defense, which protected sophomore goalkeeper Christian Roberts well.