Redhawks' surprising season comes to an impressive close

By Eddie Burns

When the 2009 season began back in August the expectations within the Naperville Central program were not all that high.

The Redhawks had questions at almost every position.

But coach Jay Konrad molded his squad together and they managed to earn the No. 4 seed in the Naperville North Sectional and the Redhawks’ reward was top seed Neuqua Valley in the sectional semifinals on Wednesday night.

The Redhawks battled back from a one-goal deficit to tie Neuqua, but Central ultimately lost when Wildcats’ all-everything player Bryan Ciesiulka tallied the winning goal in the 56th minute to give Neuqua a 2-1 victory.

“(Ciesiulka) is a pretty good player and when you let him go one-on-one, bad things happen for the other team,” Konrad said. “If you are going to lose and that is the kid who scores on you, you can live with that because he is a big-time player.”

Konrad said there wasn’t much to be upset about outside of the outcome.

“Our guys played a great game,” he said. “The only thing that has me disappointed is the score on the scoreboard. The kids played hard. They played with class. They played with integrity and they played with courage – things we preach all of the time.”

It was the Redhawks who appeared to strike first in the 15th minute, but Chris Prince’s goal was waved off because of an offside call.

Konrad said it was the correct ruling by the officials.

Neuqua (26-0-1) countered a few minutes later when Scott Davis scored off a Keegan Balle restart. It was Davis’ 24th goal of the season.

The Wildcats, who have won 23 straight games, maintained a 1-0 lead until the early portion of the second half when the Redhawks began to apply the pressure. Prince, who had Neuqua defenders surrounding him all night, helped set up the tying goal when his shot hit the post and deflected to teammate Pat Flynn who tapped the ball into the net to tie the match at 1-1 in the 48th minute.

It was the first time since an Oct. 10 match against Addison Trail that the Wildcats had allowed a goal, a streak spanning five matches.

“When (Central) scored that goal it was like, ‘Oh boy.’ You could just feel the rush of the crowd because we knew they were a second-half team and we knew we had our hands full,” Davis said.

Prince and teammate Art Garza were the main focal point of the Wildcats’ defense.

Neuqua’s Zach Kovacevic was assigned to Garza while the Wildcats employed a committee approach to Prince.

“There were spans where they held Art and Chris in check and there were spans where our guys took over the game,” Konrad said. “We were running at them, had chances and we were slapping balls through. I think today all of the kids who are supposed to be, ‘spotlight guys’ all played well on both sides.”

The Wildcats had heard all the talk about how talented Garza and Prince were, but it was one thing to hear about it and another to actually witness it.

“We knew Prince would be a handful, but I didn’t realize it wasn’t going to be that big of a task,” Davis said. “We hadn’t played the player of the caliber of Chris Prince -- he is an unbelievable player and probably the best individual player we’ve played all year. He almost took it to us by himself. You have to give credit to Central. They all played hard. I haven’t felt that kind of pressure on me in a long, long time.”

Once the match was tied the loud and enthusiastic crowd that had gathered at North was in a frenzy state.

“The atmosphere was tremendous,” Konrad said. “We had an awesome cheering section tonight and the boys put on a nice show for them.”

However, once faced with adversity the Wildcats didn’t blink.
Instead, Neuqua gathered itself and Ciesiulka regained the lead a few minutes later.

“(Our) guys need tests,” Neuqua coach Tony Kees said. “We haven’t had to gut out too many games, but we did tonight and we’ve shown that we can and that is big for us.”

The Redhawks finished their season at 15-4-2.

“We just played well,” Prince said. “Throughout my years at Central, this is the best group we’ve had as a team. We all played together well and believed in each other and that is why we had the success we had this season. It wasn’t because of skill, but because we played well together. I couldn’t ask for anything more it was a good season.”

Garza agreed that Central more than exceeded its preseason expectations.

“People never expected us to get to this point, but we had a great group of guys who just kept working and that is probably the best attribute to our team,” Garza said. “We never gave up and we were willing to work together with one another. There is no shame in losing to No. 2 team in the country. We had a game plan, but unfortunately the ball didn’t bounce our way.”

Naperville Central's 2009 results
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Postseason play