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Sports

Huskies Edge Neuqua Valley in Best of the West Opener

Super sub Komljenovic comes through with the game's only goal.

Naperville North soccer player Nanad Komljenovic’s surname is so hard to pronounce that few people even try.

Even the public address announcer just calls him Nanad.

If he keeps up his recent play, everyone will know who Komljenovic (pronounced comb-yeno-vitch) is. The senior forward scored his second goal of the season Tuesday to lift the host Huskies to a 1-0 victory over rival on the opening day of the Best of the West tournament.

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Komljenovic’s goal came with 16 minutes, 25 seconds remaining in the second half and ended a frustrating drought for the Huskies (2-0-1), who outshot the Wildcats 18-5 but had been unable to get anything past Neuqua goalie Hunter Hollingshead, who finished with eight saves.

The play began when Joe Sullivan lofted a cross from the right corner to the back post. Komljenovic jumped and directed a header downward and the ball bounced once in between Hollingshead and a defender and into the right corner of the net.

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“Joe Sullivan [had] a great cross,” Komljenovic said. “I just see it go over the defender and I just poked it and finished it. I just got my head on it a little bit to get it away from the keeper and it got past him.”

Komljenovic, a native of Serbia who came to the United States 14 years ago, played sparingly as a junior but has seen extended action as a key reserve in the absence of star playmaker Evan Trychta, who has yet to play this year because of a foot injury suffered over the summer. It is a testament to the Huskies’ depth that they are still unbeaten without Trychta.

“I’m the first guy off the bench,” said Komljenovic, who had a second scoring chance two minutes after his goal but shot high off a breakaway down the right wing. “I work hard. Every time I try and get in, the first thing I think is, ‘Get a goal.’

“That’s my job. I’m just there trying to finish goals and play balls through.”

Naperville North coach Jim Konrad is happy with Komljenovic’s effort.

“He’s done a good job of being in the right place,” Konrad said. “He’s very physically gifted. He’s strong and he’s fast. He works hard. He gives us that positive thing.”

While Komljenovic’s playing time might decrease once Trychta returns, that isn’t what matters to Komljenovic.

“[The depth] is a rare thing because we have great forwards starting and if Evan comes back we’re going to have a lot more intensity out there, so I don’t mind coming off the bench and getting a goal, even if I assist or score it or one of my teammates does it, as long as it gets done,” he said. “We’re all in this together, basically. It’s all about the team.”

The Huskies are the top-ranked team in the Chicago area and played like it against the Wildcats (1-1-1) despite not having their best player.

“They were pretty awesome tonight and they’re not even at full strength,” Neuqua Valley coach Tony Kees said. “They were all over us so [the goal] was bound to happen.

“If we can manage games, if we can hang in there and keep games tight, maybe by the end of the year we’ll have a little fun. But right now we’re so far behind where a varsity team should be it’s hard to see any positives.”

One positive was the defensive effort led by Jim Kotowski and backstopped by Hollingshead, who has been brilliant thus far.

“That was the one thing,” Kees said. “Even though North had most of the ball, I thought we limited their quality chances. We tried to limit what they were doing but we couldn’t do anything with the ball ourselves.”

Indeed, North defenders Lee Grander, Max Auden, Neil Wiaranowski, Matt Vogel and Zach Fischman were stingy throughout, and goalie Kevin Anderson did not have to make a save.

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