Huskies never quit in tie with Neuqua

By Eddie Burns

When Jim Konrad saw his Naperville North squad fall behind Neuqua Valley by two goals in the early stages of the second half, he was interested to see how his young team would respond.

The Huskies, who start four sophomores and two juniors, showed toughness and battled back to forge a tie with the state’s top-ranked team in regulation before losing 3-0 in a shootout on Tuesday night in a matchup of the two Naperville schools in the Best of the West Tournament.

“It is good that we came back,” Konrad said. “We try to instill in the kids that we play 80 minutes no matter what. We told them before the match that we might get lucky and get up 2-0, but you still have to play the whole 80 minutes. We told them we might fall behind 3-0, and you have to play the whole 80 minutes, and the guys did tonight.”

The Huskies (1-0-2) started their comeback in the 68th minute when Jake Remegi sent a restart toward the Wildcats’ penalty area and Evan Trychta managed to get his head on the ball and flick it past Neuqua goalie Jack Turanchik. It was the first goal the Wildcats (3-0-1) had allowed in four matches this season.

Neuqua did not appeared rattled after the goal and remained in control of the play, but the Huskies made one last push in the final minute. North drew a foul on Neuqua’s Keegan Balle just outside of the Wildcats’ penalty area with 45 seconds remaining.

Dean Gastouniotis restarted the ball in play and sophomore Kyle Lindberg managed to get his chest on the ball and put it home for the tying goal with 25 second on the clock.

“Dean sent the ball and coach always says, ‘Whatever it takes,’ and I just put my chest out and the ball went in,” Lindberg said.

Trychta’s goal was his third in three games for the sophomore.

“That is probably one of the best high school teams in the state and we showed some toughness battling back,” Trychta said. “We have so much potential.

“They have so many good players. It is hard to go up against them at 100 percent all of the time. You have to stay back and wait for them to make a mistake and we capitalized on both restarts.”

The Huskies were unable to carry the momentum they created by their fast finish into the penalty kicks.

Turanchik stopped Chris Boswell on the Huskies’ first attempt and then Remegi missed high and Trychta hit the post, while the Wildcats made their first three shots to seal the shootout victory.

“We’re young and we’ll learn from this,” Konrad said. “We had some guys who were very nervous during the penalty kicks.
“Overall, I was happy that we looked organized against Neuqua. For what we have and what they have, we did the best we could. I thought we played as well as we could have. I thought we could have done more on the counter attack with a couple of chances. We were very aggressive in our restarts and that is one thing that we work on every day in practice.”

The extra work certainly paid off for the Huskies.

North and Lincoln Way Central will meet at 5 p.m. on Thursday as the tournament continues.

Photos courtesy of Dennis Wiest

2009 Schedule

Starters vs. Neuqua Valley