Huskies edge Falcons for Konrad's 100th win

By Curt Herron

Jim Konrad gladly accepted a ball that was signed by all of his players following Wednesday's match with Wheaton North.

After all, it was a gift from the team to recognize the fact that the Naperville North coach had reached the 100-victory mark of his coaching career.

But what Konrad was just as pleased by was how his Huskies performed during their 1-0 DuPage Valley Conference victory over the Falcons in Naperville.

In a tightly-fought battle that featured good defense and goalkeeping on both sides, Naperville North (4-0-4, 2-0) managed to find the net early in the second half.

On both squads' first good chance of the second 40 minutes, the Huskies put together a nice sequence of passes which resulted in sophomore Evan Trychta's ninth goal of the season.

With 35:01 left in the match, Dean Gastouniotis sent a pass in to Max Auden, who dumped the ball off to Trychta, who was able to get off a good attempt that eluded keeper Nick Barry.

Wheaton North (3-3-3, 1-1) continued to apply the pressure after that but it was unable to get the ball past keeper Mike Wiest, who like Barry came up with several nice saves.

As for his 100th win, Conrad was a junior in 1987 when his coach, Dave Bucher, collected the 100th victory of his hall of fame coaching career at Naperville North.

"I was playing for coach Bucher when he got his 100th win," Konrad said. "I remember us stealing one of the balls off the field and tucking it away and all signing it and giving it to him. These boys did the same thing for me and that was cool and very nice of them.

"Our goal was just a great combination between Dean and Max to find Evan, who held off two guys and then had the composure to lift it over the keeper's hand. It was just a great, great goal for us and it really bailed us out since Wheaton North played real well.

"I thought that we did some things great tonight. I liked our offensive flow since we actually started to connecting on some passes at times, which was good to see us finally do. We've been beating it into the kids' heads and some of it's been sticking."

After collecting what turned out to be the match's lone goal, it was up to the defense to help secure the squad's second shutout in three matches and its third of the season.

Wiest did his part by coming up with a variety of big stops and benefited from the efforts of defenders such as Ramsey Elshafei, Jake Remegi, Jimmy Butler and Lee Grander.

Complicating matters for the Huskies, who sat Chris Boswell out due to a minor injury, was the fact that Barry also performed well and was backed up by a good defensive effort.

That's why Trychta's score to kick off the second half was so critical. In a match featuring few great opportunities, the hosts converted and thus came away with a win.

"Max made a great pass to me and I just got a touch on it," Trychta said. "That was really great to see since we've been working on our patterns all week, so it was really nice to see something like that actually executed in game play.

"For such a young team this is exciting and it's great that we're still undefeated. I feel that we're doing a lot of game play situations in practice and we're putting it into play. And we've been getting used to playing along with each other.

"We talked at our pasta party last night about how we were going to get ready for the big game for coach Konrad. I just love how well we all get along. There's always joking but we also know how to lock in and get serious when we need to."

Just two minutes after Trychta's goal, the Falcons resumed their challenge as Pat Langan fired off the the first of his many dangerous free kicks that went to Wiest in the second half.

Naperville North responded to another Langan free kick with a header by Auden that was stopped by Barry and a few minutes later Auden knocked a shot off of the post.

Around the midpoint of the second half, Gastouniotis got into the act with a long free kick and then had a short shot stopped on a play where Auden looked to be knocked down in the box.

Following a long free kick by Falcon Andrew Lee, the Huskies countered with good shot attempts from Trychta, Gastouniotis and Jack Henderson which were all halted.

With just over 5:00 left, Jordan Richert sent a header to Wiest and Trychta answered with a line drive that Barry was able to haul a short time later.

The Falcons had one final great opportunity but came up empty when Langan put a free kick in the box but Jacques Ntahoturi was just wide on his header try into an open net.

"In the first half Wheaton North did a real nice job of getting the ball over the top of our back and running onto it and we didn't do a good job of covering that," Konrad said. "But we did a much better job on that during the second half.

"We were sloppy in the second chance on restarts and their one kid kept hitting a nasty direct kick which we were nervous about so we needed to be more responsible in our fouling. But in this conference, a win's a win and we'll take it."

There were many fewer good chances during the initial 40 minutes of play as neither squad was able to manufacture any threats within the opening 15 minutes.

The activity began in earnest with about 23 minutes left in the half when Gastouniotis was stopped on a corner kick and Richert failed on a liner a short time later.

After Ntahoturi was halted on a header, the Huskies received good shot attempts from Auden, Henderson and Trychta which all were corralled by Barry.

Wheaton North had a pair of chances with about 12 minutes left before the break but Wiest stopped a header by Josh Bennett and a liner by Zak Gudanik.

Man of the match: Dean Gastouniotis

By Curt Herron

With standout Chris Boswell sitting out the match as a precaution due to an injury, it was time for someone to step up for Naperville North on Wednesday.

And that someone was senior Dean Gastouniotis, who took on extra responsibilities when the Huskies met Wheaton North in a DuPage Valley Conference match.

In addition, he had a hand in the lone goal that was scored in the Huskies' 1-0 win over the Falcons, which came about five minutes into the second half.

Gastouniotis started things off by getting the ball to Max Auden, who sent a pass in to Evan Trychta, who beat Nick Barry for his ninth goal of the year.

"I liked the way that Dean played," said Huskies coach Jim Konrad, who collected his 100th win. "He's a forward but with Chris down, he said that he'd do whatever and he stepped up and had a great game."

That was enough support for keeper Mike Wiest, who turned in another strong performance to help the Huskies post their second shutout in three matches.

"Wheaton North came out strong but I thought we came out a little stronger and that's what led to our victory," Gastouniotis said. "On our goal, Max and Evan really connect really well up top and I saw Max and gave him the ball and from there it was creativity.

"At the beginning of the season we started kind of rough and couldn't really connect with the ball. But I think that today we really got down to it and made some good touches and connected with the outside mids, just like we've been working on in practice.

"We've got a lot of young guys on this team but I also think that there's a lot of potential on our team. Everyone comes out here and gives us 100 percent and that's all that you can ask for."

Huskies starters vs. Wheaton North

2009 Huskies Schedule