Kankakee Valley captures second NCC title in 3 years

Updated: September 27, 2011 9:56PM

LOWELL — Kankakee Valley laid claim to its second Northwest Crossroads Conference championship in three years by downing Lowell 7-1 Tuesday.

Even more impressively, the Kougars finished the season 6-0 in the conference.

“I’m as proud of these girls as a coach can be,” said Kougars coach John Hufnagel. “We went to semi-state in 09 and this is a completely different squad. People don’t know how hard these kids work, we’ve got the youngest team in the conference and we only have two seniors.”

The Kougars (10-5, 6-0) scored five first-half goals to give them more than enough breathing room.

Dayton Dellahan got the Kougars on the board in the seventh minute on a cross from Haleigh Wenglarz. Dellahan notched her second of the evening three minutes later, picking up a loose ball in front of Red Devils keeper Morgan Born. Natalie Lotz took a cross from Hannah Wilder in the 22nd minute to make it 3-0. Lotz then buried a deflection off of Born’s hands after taking a feed from Rejean Almira in the 28th minute. Alyssa Cox finished off the first-half scoring, getting another helper from Almira in the 37th minute.

Haley Becker scored in the 60th minute on a corner kick that bounced off a leaping Born’s hands and rolled past Lowell defenseman Marie Ingebretsen just over the goal line and Jen Sobierajski took a beautiful cross from Hayley Hoffman for the Kougars’ seventh goal of the night in the 70th minute.

The Red Devils (1-9, 1-4) had chances in the second half but KV keeper Cassie Cleveland was up to the task as she turned away point blank shots by Danielle Sopovski and Lindsey Ward. Lowell finally got on the board in the 77th minute as senior Alison Johnson picked up a loose ball and fired it past Cleveland for the only Red Devils score of the evening.

“You have to give Lowell a lot of credit,” Hufnagel said. “They never gave up. They played with spirit and their kids gave everything they had.”

“They are a solid team," Lowell coach Melissa Buche said. "They had great shots all night, most of the goals they scored were off of one touches. A lot of people have told me how much we are improving as a team. Our passing looks a lot better and we are getting more competitive.”

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