Harvard hasn’t let a season end without hoisting the Kishwaukee River Conference Tournament championship trophy since the first year of the bracket-style event in 2022.

And senior midfielder Jesus Aquino and the Hornets weren’t about to let that tradition fizzle out Monday against KRC regular-season champion Woodstock North.

Aquino opened the scoring with a left-footed strike less than 12 minutes in, and the third-seeded Hornets went on to score the game’s first four goals en route to a 4-1 win over the top-seeded Thunder for the program’s fourth straight tournament title at Woodstock North High School in Woodstock.

“It was very important to keep that streak going and keep seeing Harvard on that trophy,” said Aquino, who also added an assist in the win. “All four years I’ve been here and we’ve won it. It was a goal we had since the season started, and now we get to check that off the list.”

Harvard (13-6) lost a penalty-kick shootout on Sept. 15 to Woodstock North (12-11), which went on to win the conference regular season title for the first time in school history with two goals in the final 10 minutes of a 3-1 win over Woodstock last month.

Entering the tournament as the No. 3 seed, the Hornets were determined to keep their streak going. Harvard shut out No. 2 Woodstock 3-0 in the semifinals for its seventh straight win, and Monday’s victory made it eight in a row with an impressive 50-4 goal advantage.

Harvard’s penalty-kick shootout loss to North still is the team’s last loss. The Hornets also lost to Woodstock during the conference season.

“Like I tell the guys, it’s hard to stay on top and it’s hard to bring it every single game,” Hornets coach Victor Gonzalez said. “I know we were the better team the first time we played [North]. We were the better team when we lost to Woodstock, as well ... and so we wanted to prove that. We had a point to prove, and I think we did that throughout our tournament run.”

Aquino scored the game’s opening goal with 28:45 left in the first half to set the tone for the Hornets, assisted by sophomore Eddie Fuentes. Then with 15:32 left, Aquino raced up field and beat a Thunder defender to the ball to set up a one-on-one matchup with goalkeeper Alex Carbajal.

But Aquino stayed patient and passed the ball off to Fuentes, who was running toward goal and tapped the ball in just as a North defender got there, knocking Fuentes into the back of the net, as well.

Gonzalez said Aquino is always looking to get his teammates involved.

“Sometimes I want him to be more selfish, you know, but absolutely that’s the type of player he is and type of person he is,” he said. “He’s a great kid, so it was nice to be able to get his teammate on the scoreboard.”

North coach Silmar Martinez felt his defense had an uncharacteristic showing. The Thunder defense was allowing just 1.64 goals a game entering their game Monday.

“We know they’re fast players and they try to do counter attacks,” Martinez said of the Hornets. “Our defense has been solid pretty much the whole season, but today was just a bad day. We kind of struggled there. We made a couple mistakes and [Harvard] took advantage.”

Harvard senior forward Bryan Gorostieta kept the pressure on the Thunder with a goal less than 11 minutes into the second half for a 3-0 lead. Not even a minute later, Jonathan Ramirez scored to give the Hornets a 4-0 advantage.

“Let’s come out, just give it our all and put the game away in the first 10 minutes,” Gorostieta said of the half-time message. “So we can just control the game in the end.”

Woodstock North got on the scoreboard on a header goal by sophomore Saul Santana with 3:22 left in the game. Santana jumped high in the air and headed in Jorge Tapia Ortiz’s corner kick, giving Santana a school record-tying 27th goal of the season.

Despite the loss, Martinez, in his first year, said he’s excited to see what his team can do in the postseason.

“It’s a young team, and I want to see the team that played in the beginning of the season. That team that wants it all,” he said. “I believe in my players. We take this loss, we learn from it and we move forward.”