Boys soccer: Romeoville strikes first, can’t hold on in sectional loss to Naperville North

PLAINFIELD – Romeoville struck first against top-seeded Naperville North and held the Huskies scoreless for about 60 minutes Wednesday night.

It started to feel like the Spartans’ magic from last season – when they surprised the state with a runner-up finish in Class 3A – was back.

Then Naperville North, widely considered a state title favorite, stormed back.

The Huskies scored three times in the final 23 minutes to end the season for fourth-seeded Romeoville, pulling off a 3-1 win in a Class 3A Plainfield North Sectional semifinal.

“We had to play a perfect game and not give them chances, and we gave them a couple chances,” Romeoville coach Nick Cirrincione said. “We still had some chances, too, but we just didn’t get the goals we needed. We played well for 60 minutes, but we just couldn’t keep them contained.”

Manny Casillas scored in the 20th minute for Romeoville (17-6-3).

Noah Radeke had a goal and two assists to lead the comeback for Naperville North (20-1-3), which will play crosstown rival Naperville Central (11-5-7) – a 1-0 overtime winner against Oswego – in the sectional championship game at 10 a.m. Saturday. Anthony Flores and Jaxon Stokes also scored for the Huskies.

“The first half, they had us on the ropes, for sure,” Naperville North coach Jim Konrad said. “The first 30 minutes, [Romeoville] did a great job putting pressure on us and they were flying all over the field.

“I was proud of the boys. We kept telling them to stay the course. We made some better decisions with the ball and we fought our way through.”

After a wave of pressure from Romeoville over the first 20 minutes, Casillas cashed in with a beautiful strike on a free kick from 25 yards, blasting it into the top left corner of the net to give the Spartans the lead.

“That was legit,” Cirrincione said. “You can’t get any better than that. He scored one a couple weeks ago that was just like that. The same exact shot into the upper 90.”

Casillas said he put in a lot of prep work for that exact opportunity.

“I go practice with [goalkeeper Alex] Duda in the mornings before school, and we practice free kicks just in case there’s a big moment like that,” Casillas said. “I had the chance to take it, and I scored it. It gave us the 1-0 lead. It felt good.”

Romeoville took a 1-0 lead to halftime, but Casillas thought it should have been more.

“I think we definitely took it to them the entire first half,” Casillas said. “We definitely won the first half, but we should have finished more to kill them right away.”

Radeke gave Naperville North the lift it needed when he headed in Josh Pedersen’s corner kick to tie the game with 22:34 to go.

The Huskies took off from there, with Radeke setting up his teammates for goals. Flores had the go-ahead strike with 14:44 to go, and Stokes closed the scoring with 6:50 left.

“We obviously went down 1-0 off a great free kick from their player,” Radeke said. “We just knew we had to get back into the game. This is the last chance for some of our players, and we couldn’t get bounced early after only losing one game all season.”

The loss ends the high school careers of 14 Romeoville seniors, many of whom were part of the state runner-up team last season.

“I’m going to remember those moments, the big victories, the comeback wins, the hard-fought wins throughout the year,” said Casillas, a senior. “It all feels great.

“I think we left the program in good hands. I knew my class was great. From middle school we all knew what we were going for. We’ve all been playing together since we were young, so we already had that chemistry and it really showed.”