Naperville North makes its mark against West Aurora

It took a little while for Naperville North to figure out the West Aurora defense in Tuesday's Class 3A regional semifinal.

But the Huskies eventually figured out the Blackhawks' man-marking, and the result was a Chris Sullivan hat trick and a 4-0 Huskies victory at Naperville North. The Huskies will host Plainfield Central, a 3-0 victor against Geneva, in Friday's regional final.

"The better team won by far," West Aurora coach Joe Sustersic said.

For most of the first half, the No. 17-seeded Blackhawks were good enough to hang with the top-seeded Huskies. Both teams took their shots, and both had good chances to score but didn't.

The Huskies (15-4) broke the deadlock in the 33rd minute on Sullivan's first goal of the night.

"They were playing us tough," Sullivan said. "They came up with an interesting strategy against us there, man-marking our forwards, and it was tough to get space. But once we figured it out we put more in after that. It just opened the gates."

"He's got some hard-nosed kids," Huskies coach Jim Konrad said of Sustersic. "He says we're going to lock them down, play 1v1 in the back and we're going to chase and work. They've done that to us in the past when we've had good teams, so we knew there was a chance of that coming in, but it's still different. You don't see that anymore. You don't see that old-school man-marking, and it's tough to adust to."

The adjustment involved making different runs and playing faster with fewer touches on the ball. Three more goals came in the second half, two by Sullivan to give him 18 on the season, one by senior midfielder Grant Borg off a Sullivan corner kick.

It wasn't Sullivan's first hat trick of the season.

"This one was all my teammates, really," he said. "They found me in great places. I had an easy job today."

Konrad liked how Sullivan got the job done, however.

"Down the stretch here he's just putting it on, scoring goal after goal, being creative and dangerous. You need that kid that's going to shake things up for himself. He's been special," Konrad said.

The victory was the 200th of coach Jim Konrad's career, coming in his 12th season as coach.

"My nephew (Mitch Konrad) is on the team," he said. "That's a neat piece, my brother's (Jay) son played for us this year. I remember I was playing for (hall of fame coach Dave Bucher) when he got his 100th. And so it's been neat for me to be part of this great program and to follow after Bucher. He has 362, I think, so I've got a long way to go to catch him. That's the goal.

"But I just feel so lucky to be at the place where I went to school, to be coaching here. I've been here a long time. Wins come with length, but I've been blessed to have some great teams to help me pile up those wins a little bit faster."

The loss meant the end of the season for the Blackhawks (4-8-11), but it also was a first for them. They've done a good job frustrating opposing teams and being competitive.

"We've been doing that for most of the year," Sustersic said. "We played St. Charles North well, we played Edwardsville well. This is the first time that we've been blown out of a game. We went the whole regular season with 21 games decided by one goal ... and we had 11 ties."

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