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Sports

Soccer: Neuqua Wins Naperville Invitational

Neuqua Valley 1, Lyons 0. The Wildcats improve to 17-0 on the season by capturing its first-ever Naperville Invitational title.

After girls soccer team won the prestigious Naperville Invitational at Saturday, the celebration was brief.

The 1-0 win, played in high winds against another No. 1 sectional seed, Lyons, sealed the first Naperville Invitational title in program history for the Wildcats.

“We’re tired after the past three days, but we’re really excited,” Neuqua senior Megan Oyster said. “We’re trying to be humble. We’re very proud of it, though. We’re not stopping here. We need to look at this win as the start of a journey to state.”

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The Wildcats (17-0) took advantage of playing with the wind in the first half and dominated the pace of play against the Lions (14-3-1). Lyons was held without a shot in the entire half. But the Wildcats were able to score the game’s lone goal with 9:40 left in the half.

Sophomore Hope D’Addario scored her second goal of the season, using her left foot to loft a shot from 30 yards out that bounced off the inside of the crossbar and down over the goal line behind Lyons keeper Maggie Orlowski.

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“I had the opening up the middle, and yesterday, I didn’t take it as much,” D’Addario said. “Today, it was open, so I just had to take it. It was on my left foot. I’m not a leftie, but I wasn’t going to take the time to take it to my right foot, so I blasted it. Luckily, it his the inside of the crossbar and came down.”

The Wildcats needed to hunker down in the second half defensively to make that goal stand. Playing against the wind, Neuqua got only one shot on goal off in the second half, from D’Addario.

Lyons, meanwhile, seemed to have a slight advantage in the pace of play, but was still unable to get a shot on goal. In fact, a direct kick from senior Kelsey Holbert, a Wisconsin-Milwaukee recruit, with 10 seconds left that sailed high may have been its best chance of the day.

“Even with three defenders in the back, I think that our defense is one of the strongest,” D’Addario said. “I think that overall they just make sure that nothing gets past them. That’s their job, and they do that very well.”

The Wildcats were bolstered by the return of sophomore Zoey Goralski to the lineup after a two-game absence while playing with the U16 national team in Los Angeles. Her flight left at 6 a.m. today and she arrived at Central shortly before game time. She did not start, but did play meaningful minutes in the win.

Neuqua has only three regular season games remaining before opening play as the No. 1 seed in the Class 3A Waubonsie Valley Sectional.

“It wasn’t pretty,” Neuqua coach Joe Moreau said of Saturday’s match. “It was probably a pretty good game for spectators to watch, but I don’t think either coach was too happy with it. But we beat two undefeated teams in Conant and Sandburg. Lyons is a top-notch team. That’s the nice thing about this tournament. We want to play tough teams.”

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