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Sports

Girls Soccer: Huskies To Play Saturday Night For Class 4A State Title

Naperville North 1, Conant 0. The Huskies advance to Saturday's 7 p.m. state title match against Granite City with Friday's win.

NAPERVILLE – For ’s girls soccer team, the 1-0 win has become a staple of its postseason run.

Appropriately, it was another 1-0 final, the fourth in six postseason games, that pushed the Huskies into Saturday’s Class 4A state championship match.

Friday’s 1-0 win over Conant in the semifinals put the Huskies in a position to win its second state title in program history mere minutes from their own campus, down the road at Naperville Central. North will face downstate Granite City, a 1-0 winner over Fremd, at 7 p.m. for the title.

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“We knew that if we scored first, it was going to be really, really tough for (Conant),” North junior Hunter Drendel said. “(Playing for a state title) doesn’t come very often. This is a chance that we’re going to grab, and we’re not going to let go. Not many people can say that in their high school career they even got to a state championship game. The fact that we’re here, I think that puts a lot of pressure on us, but we want it so bad.”

Drendel was a key part of North’s lone goal. A mere 3:28 into the match, she played the ball ahead to sophomore Zoe Swift, the star of Tuesday’s 2-1 win over York in the supersectional. Befitting her last name, Swift blew past Conant’s defenders and got a shot off, giving the Huskies (18-5-1) the quick lead.

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“We’ve been working that play in practice and we were scouting them a lot, so we knew that the play was going to be on,” Drendel said. “I told Zoe to go. With her speed, I knew she could beat their backs any day. I think she can beat any back in the state. With her speed, I knew that if I could just flick the ball with the right pace that she’d get on it and it would be perfect.”

The early goal let North do what it does best, play defense with a lead. Conant (20-5) did keep the pressure on, putting nine shots on goal in the game, but North’s senior defenders, led by Kirsten Anderson, Jamie Meno and Adrienne Schertz, bottled the Cougars up for the most part. Their leading scorer, Courtney Raetzman (22 goals, 15 assists on the season) managed only one shot on goal the whole game.

“Without our back line, we’re not even close to being in this game,” North coach Brent Terada said. “They stepped up huge. A lot of times, we leave them on an island back there to deal with some of the best attackers in the state, if not the country. They’ve done a great job. They just don’t let us fail. They’re the only reason we won this game tonight.”

Saturday night will mark North’s first appearance in the state title game since finishing second in 1998. The Huskies’ lone state title in girls soccer came under legendary coach Alan Harris in 1988.

“I’m tired, but it doesn’t even matter,” Swift said. “We’re in the state finals. As a sophomore, it’s awesome. We really want to win this for our seniors. We want them to leave with their last memory in high school being state champions.”

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