Naperville North’s Tyson Amoo-Mensah is a player whose accomplishments rarely will be seen on a scoresheet.
You’re not going to hear about them, either, at least not from him.
But the senior defensive midfielder makes a big difference for the Huskies, one that is surpassed only by his humble nature.
“Tyson is a guy that just likes to get in the middle and get dirty and grind,” Naperville North coach Jim Konrad said. “If he scores, I’m happy for him, but he gets his energy from just defending and running and battling.”
There was a lot for Konrad and his players to be happy about Tuesday night.
Amoo-Mensah scored a big goal in the second half and took care of all the usual dirty work as the top-seeded Huskies ended Neuqua Valley’s Cinderella run with a 4-1 victory in the Class 3A Plainfield North Sectional semifinals.
Naperville North (20-5-2) will play third-seeded Naperville Central (15-7-1) — which beat second-seeded Oswego East 3-2 — in Saturday’s sectional championship game.
The 13th-seeded Wildcats (9-10-1), who upset West Aurora and Plainfield East to win their regional, pulled within 2-1 when Ved Asur scored off a goalmouth scramble with 36:49 left in the second half.
Six minutes later, Indiana-bound Alex Barger sent a corner in from the right side. Neuqua goalkeeper Nick Varrone made two great saves, first deflecting a header off the right post, then blocking a shot from Cam Radeke off the inside of the left post.
But the ball caromed into the crease to an unmarked Amoo-Mensah, and he tapped in his third goal of the season.
“All I did, I made a run I was supposed to make and then as soon as it came across, I just slotted it in,” said Amoo-Mensah, who recently committed to DePaul. “It was a great feeling.
“We work collectively. My role on the team is mostly defensive, but I’m glad to get one in to help the team win.”
Radeke was glad to see Amoo-Mensah find the back of the net, too.
“He really deserves that goal,” Radeke said. “I’m glad he scored that because often in the stats, you don’t really see how much work he puts in. He puts a lot of work into defending, and he’s just all over the field.”
The Wright State-bound Radeke put the exclamation point on the win when he bagged his team-leading 16th goal with 9:43 remaining on a 20-yard rocket.
“It was really nice,” Radeke said. “Up until that point, I wasn’t really playing the best, and to get that took a weight off my shoulders and really secured the game.”
As they have done so often, the Huskies won the game thanks to their mastery of set pieces. They scored on three corner kicks, the first two of which came on back-to-back shots a minute apart.
Keegan Flaherty opened the scoring 4:14 into the game, firing in a shot off a defender. Ryan Konrad headed in the second one off Barger’s service.
Neuqua coach Arnoldo Gonzalez said that was the turning point.
“That is all we talked about — defending set pieces,” Gonzalez said. “Have you not seen what they can do on set pieces?
“We scored the goal, we had the momentum, and we gave up another easy one.”
Amoo-Mensah said nothing came easy for the Huskies.
“Give respect to Neuqua,” he said. “They played a great game.
“We worked really hard, but we could have played a lot better on the technical side. There’s still a lot of things that we need to work on going into the next game to get the result we want.”
Matt Le Cren is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.
