Girls Soccer: Naperville North uses five-minute surge to top Lincoln-Way Central

Updated: April 21, 2012 7:23PM

Top-ranked Naperville North has been unbeatable this spring, but the Huskies had never been as effective as they were Saturday.

The host Huskies (12-0) tallied three goals in a nine-minute span early in the first half and cruised to a 4-0 victory over Lincoln-Way Central to clinch a berth in the quarterfinals of the Naperville Invitational.

“I think we just played better as a team,” said Naperville North senior Hunter Drendel, who along with freshman Abbie Boswell had a goal and an assist. “We’ve been working a lot on different combinations up top and I think with just having that fresh in our minds we were able to play those combinations and just kind of work around the ball a lot more.”

That was evident on the game’s first goal, which Drendel, a Northern Colorado recruit, assisted on with 32:34 to go in the first half.

Boswell passed into the box to Zoe Swift, who tapped it back out to Cora Climo on the right wing. Climo sent a cross to the back post to Drendel, who won a challenge from Knights goalie Jessica Phillips and headed the ball across the middle to Christa Szalach, whose 10-yard shot got through traffic and went inside the right post.

Three minutes later, Drendel took a pass from Climo in the midfield and bent a 22-yard shot around the charging Phillips to make it 2-0.

Naperville North kept the pressure up as Zoe Swift scored her team-leading 14th goal off a feed from Boswell at the 23:04 mark. Six minutes later Boswell tallied her seventh goal off a Maria Grygleski assist to finish the scoring.

The Huskies, who struggled offensively in a 1-0 win over Lyons on Thursday, wound up outshooting Lincoln-Way Central 24-1.

“LT definitely came out a lot harder than this team,” Drendel said. “So I felt with just a little less pressure on us we had more time to play and just really figure out what we wanted to do and find the right play.”

“I thought this was the best game we’ve played in terms of our offensive patterns and being able to keep the ball and make the right passes,” Naperville North coach Steve Goletz said. “Really what it boiled down to was every time we got the ball we looked to be dangerous right away, and I think we were dangerous.”

Allison Hitchcock did not have to make a save in recording her eighth shutout for the Huskies. Phillips, a freshman, made 11 saves for Lincoln-Way Central (10-5), which has outscored its opponents 33-0 in its 10 wins. The Knights’ previous losses were one-goal decisions to Neuqua Valley, Downers Grove South, St. Charles North and Lyons.

“That is the best team we’ve played by far,” Lincoln-Way Central coach Dan Radz said. “They’ve got the complete package up and down the field. They’re tough in the back, they don’t give us any breathing room up today and in the midfield we were backing up on them.”

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