AURORA – Naperville North forward Jaxon Stokes had just been elbowed in the face by Metea Valley goalkeeper Patrick Maroney while going up for a header in the box.

Everyone would have understood if Stokes had wanted to take the ensuing penalty kick.

Instead, the Belmont recruit opted to defer to junior defender Sam Hess, who beat Maroney with a rocket into the lower left corner of the net with 12:21 remaining in the first half.

The goal was the first of the season for Hess and first of the DuPage Valley Conference match the visiting Huskies ended up winning 2-0 Tuesday night.

“I have a lot of confidence in Sam to take the PK, because he’s a really confident player,” Stokes said. “He can make plays and he’s calm under pressure.”

How calm? Calm enough not to overthink things.

“I don’t think about it too much,” Hess said. “I go up, hit it, do the same thing every time and put it in the net.”

So, who decides who will take a penalty kick? Does the player who got fouled get first dibs, or does the coach choose a player?

“Whoever is feeling it, takes it,” Hess said. “That’s really how it is.

“It’s not necessarily about scoring it; it’s about having the confidence to do it.”

Naperville North coach Jim Konrad has confidence that his players will choose the right option. He pretty much stays out of it.

“I never really weigh in on it,” Konrad said. “It’s rare that I weigh in on it. Usually, the boys decide.”

Naturally, Konrad approved of the choice of Hess to take the kick.

“Sam is such a great ball-striker; Jaxon too,” Konrad said. “We have so many guys that are good ball-strikers. Sometimes as a player when you take a difficult shot, you might be a little banged up. You want to make sure that one of your teammates can step up and take the shot for you.

“And I think the guys honor Sam because he plays so hard in the back. Most teams he’d be playing somewhere in the midfield, but he plays in the back for us. I think the guys sometimes throw him a chance to score. Obviously, he hit it perfectly.”

Stokes, of course, always gets at least several chances to score in a game, and he’s good at finishing. Sure enough, he found the back of the net to make it 2-0 with 4:58 to go before halftime.

Midfielder Luke Bouska played a long ball over the top to Stokes, who despite being surrounded by defenders somehow settled the bouncing ball and rolled a shot inside the left post. It was his ninth goal of the season.

“Me and Luke Bouska made eye contact, and I ran through,” Stokes said. “He popped it over to me, and I just had to stay calm and just pass it into the goal.”

The finish put Metea Valley (6-5-1, 0-2-1) in a hole it knew was going to be hard to climb out of.

“It was tough,” Mustangs coach Josh Robinson said. “We were playing well, a nice, even game, and then the pen kind of set it back.

“That put us in a little bit of difficulty, and then Stokes is Stokes. He just needs a moment, right? He’s cool and composed, and he tucks that away. Then all of a sudden, we’re down 2-0.

“But what I appreciate out of the boys was, you go down two. Two weeks ago, we kind of fell apart a little bit (in an 8-3 loss to Argo). Today we kind of came back together, battled and did tons of really nice things in the second half.”

The Mustangs actually did nice things in both halves. They had the top-ranked Huskies (12-0-0, 3-0-0) on their heels at times in the early going, forcing goalkeeper Jack Bouska to made three of his four saves, including a great diving stop on the left post on a 20-yard shot from Jake Anargyros in the second minute.

“I thought we played pretty good,” Metea Valley defender Eric Jernigan said. “Our ability to tap high intensity in the beginning of the game through the end shows that we’re able to move through adversity.

“We put a lot of pressure on their mids and the backline. We were able to create chances even though we weren’t able to score.”

But Metea Valley came pretty darn close. At the 21:20 mark of the second half, Anargyros unleashed a 30-yard drive that struck the underside of the crossbar and came down in front of the goal line.

“If we had been a little bit lucky,” Robinson said. “If Jake’s shot goes bar down and into the goal rather than bouncing down and it’s an inch off the line, now it’s 2-1 and we’re in a little bit of a battle.

“I’m not a big guy on moral victories, but at the same time, there’s a ton of good things that I hope they’re able to see.

“We’re asking for consistency. If we play consistently like that, things maybe go our way.”

Instead, things went the way of Naperville North, as they usually do. But Konrad gave credit to the Metea Valley for a strong effort.

“We knew that they would be a good team,” Konrad said. “They try to keep it and again, we keep learning, which can be frustrating at times, but we’re not perfect yet.

“They did a real nice job of moving the ball side to side on us through the midfield. Eventually the boys sorted some of those things out.”

Indeed, the Huskies generated more consistent pressure in the second half and could have blown the game open if not for the play of Maroney, who made five of his six saves after the break. They included two great stops on Noah Radeke, one of which came on a breakaway, and a kick-save on Stokes.

“Metea is always hard to play,” Hess said. “They’re always going to battle you.

“I think as a team we played a better second half than the first half. We were better defensively in the second half and offensively creating chances. 

“Overall, there is a lot of room for improvement but it was a great overall game.”

Radeke, who leads the Huskies with 11 goals and six assists, and Stokes have produced half of North’s scoring thus far. But they are just finishing what their teammates start.

“I feel like the whole team helps us score our goals,” Stokes said. “Because we wouldn’t get the ball if they weren’t working hard to win it and pass it to us.”

 
Starting lineups

Naperville North
GK: Jack Bouska
D: Sam Hess
D: Connor Hanrahan
D: Josh Pedersen
D: Colin McMahon
M: Andre Miarkulau
M: Brian Biederman
M: Dylan Healy
F: Noah Radeke
F: Anthony Flores
F: Jaxon Stokes
 
Metea Valley
GK: Patrick Maroney
D: Cameron Leys
D: Christopher Wilkinson
D: Eric Jernigan
D: Langdon Kot
M: Anthony Hildreth
M: Sahil Khare
M: Cole Hatfield
F: Michael Birkner
F: Jacob Ferreira
F: Jake Anargyros
 
Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match: Sam Hess, jr., D, Naperville North

 
Scoring summary

First half
Naperville North: Sam Hess (PK), 28’
Naperville North: Jaxon Stokes (Luke Bouska), 36’
 
Second half
No scoring