Warriors post 16th shutout and a sectional final berth on Tuesday

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By Gary Larsen

Defenders usually toil in anonymity, and the defenders at Waubonsie Valley can get especially lost in the long shadow of the Warriors’ seemingly endless supply of top-shelf attacking players.

All the Warriors have this year is Illinois’ Gatorade Player of the Year in Vanessa Dibernardo, and all she did on Tuesday was chip in a pair of beautiful finishes in Waubonsie’s 2-0 sectional semifinal win over Naperville Central.

But the Warriors in back also had another good day, as Colleen Gorkis, Kerri Skotnicki, Mary Wright, Rachel Miller, and keeper Allison Fox helped earn the team’s 16th shutout in 24 games. Waubonsie has only given up 9 goals this season, and Tuesday’s shutout was the Warriors’ sixth in a row.

“We communicate really well and we work for each other,” Gorkis said. “If I go up for a head ball I always know Mary is going to cover for me, and Kerri and Rachel on the outsides work really hard. They’re always sprinting.”

Against a Central team that has lived and died offensively by the restart this season, Waubonsie Valley was largely successful limiting those restarts.

“We definitely had to make sure we were on our marks, hard, and we didn’t want them slipping in through,” Gorkis said. “And we tried to go into the game with the mentality not to foul. We wanted to avoid that altogether and I thought we did a pretty good job. Most of their free kicks were from around the half.”

All Fox had to do this season was follow Claire Hanold, a four-year all-everything varsity keeper who recently completed an outstanding freshman season for DePaul. Fox has more than held up her end of the deal in her senior year.

“Allison’s on my club team, too, and she’s really solid back there,” Gorkis said. “I love having her back there. She talks a lot, and she has definitely taken up Claire’s role confidently this year.”

The Warriors in back also play a key role in an attack that has put 69 goals on the board through 24 games.

DiBernardo has scored about a third of those goals, including her 21st and 22nd goals on Tuesday. Even a small amount of space given to a player like DiBernardo is too much space, and on Tuesday Naperville Central gave her more than a little space and paid the price.

Left foot, right foot, game over. DiBernardo took a touch to her left and sent a left-footed shot inside the far post from 20 yards out in the 9th minute, then took a touch to her right in the 24th minute and buried a shot from 23 yards out with her right foot.

“They tend to give us a lot of space and usually we don’t know what to do with it,” DiBernardo said. “But this time we worked on it and settled ourselves down with it, and the combinations we played really helped us.”

Central coach Ed Watson didn’t want to assign a player to mark DiBernardo, and hoped his squad would collectively keep a handle on her.

“I told them that we wanted to identify her and as a group of eleven on the field, always know where she is,” Watson said. “But she can also just do so many things, and her teammates are so smart about getting her the ball. There were times when we were on her and she still made something happen.”

Central goalkeeper Jill D’Amico made several big saves during the game, but had no chance against the two DiBernardo finished on.

“I’m always trying to (shoot) to the corners,” DiBernardo said. “(D’Amico) is a really good keeper and she made some good saves throughout the game. She really kept them in the game.”

DiBernardo has scored 22 goals this season, giving her 75 goals in her four-year varsity career. The top-seeded Warriors take on No. 6 Wheaton Warrenville South in a sectional title game on Friday at Naperville Central, after the Tigers’ 1-0 semifinal win over No. 2 Neuqua Valley.

For the fourth-seeded Redhawks, it was a game of what-ifs against Waubonsie Valley.

“We just didn’t have enough balls on frame,” Watson said. “After they got up 2 we had plenty of chances to get one before halftime and that would have made a big difference. And I would say the first five minutes of the second half we had ample opportunities to put us on the board. We generated attack. We just didn’t generate enough quality shots.”

The Redhawks finished 16-3-5 on the year and will bid farewell to 11 graduating seniors, including a pair of four-year varsity players in Taylor Heatherly and Hillary Scott, plus starters Hannah Brenner, Sally Stocchero, and Alex Coon.

Heatherly played a key role in back for Watson from the first day she stepped onto the field at Naperville Central.

“Taylor had a tough freshman year, being asked to play way too much of a role because of the team we had that year. She had to do those things for us and to her credit – I’m sure there were some nights when she went home crying – she kept coming back because the game means so much to her, and playing for her school means so much to her.”