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ST. CHARLES – Jacob Ryu simply found his opening within the sea of jerseys in front of the St. Charles East net.
It certainly came at a crucial point during Thursday’s game.
With the scored tied and 17:55 remaining in the second half with the Saints, Ryu, a Naperville North senior midfielder, connected on a corner kick header to lift the Huskies to a 3-2 non-conference victory.
“I know Alex [Barger] is pretty trustworthy with those [corner kick] balls all the time,” Ryu said. “Always practicing...just played a beautiful ball. Just found my way and got an easy touch on it with my head.”
That specific corner set piece is a play the Huskies (13-5-2, 4-0) run “over and over again.” It again paid off.
“Alex played a perfect ball and Ryu obviously made the right run and just was in the right spot to bring it home; so it was a great play,” Naperville North coach Jim Konrad said. “That’s a great [St. Charles East] team. They’re an incredible team...I would not want to play them again. They’re loaded.”
“They’re going to be a super dangerous team come tournament time. They’re built to compete at that level,” Konrad continued.
The Saints (14-3-0, 4-1-0), offered an honest self-reflection on the pivotal play.
“The guys aren’t willing to head the ball out of the air,” Saints senior Connor King said. “We’re playing super soft; it’s a recurring problem and it’s not something that we should be going into the postseason just being comfortable with. This is obviously really hard for the team [and] we’ve still got some growing points.”
St. Charles East coach Vince DiNuzzo shared virtually the same thoughts as King on the defensive lapse.
“We’re unwilling to head the ball in the air. It was a theme today,” DiNuzzo said. “We knew how [Naperville North] plays. We’ve seen them on film. It was nothing that shocked us. But our goal before the game was ‘don’t get scored on a set piece and we got scored on a set piece’. Credit to them, they took advantage of our team doesn’t have a lot of height, but we were in a position to win the ball in the air and we didn’t do it.”
Naperville North took a 1-0 lead, which lasted into the break, on a goal by Keegan Flaherty. The Huskies padded the advantage with a goal from Bryan Higgs close to three minutes into the second half, but the Saints answered back.
After a Huskies foul, Sebastian Carranza booted home the penalty kick with 29:43 left. Luca Avendano’s strike to the back of the net about six regulation minutes later tied it 2-2.
“We came out looking like we were a bunch of zombies,” King said. “We’ve got everything we wanted: we’ve got the crowd; we’ve got the lights...just can’t perform. We’re not communicating well and that’s something we need to do going into the postseason. It’s just not working out for us. Tomorrow’s practice is going to be a hard one because it’s captain-led. So, we’re going to keep the boys accountable for their actions.”