Late goal spells doom for Plainfield Central

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By Bill Scheibe

A seething Cathy Tram, as mad as a hatter at herself, spent the majority of the second half Wednesday night sitting on the end of the Oswego bench. Eventually, Panthers coach Jamie Bartkowiak took control.

As the scoreboard clock ticked toward the waning moments of regulation, and with overtime seemingly a certainty, Bartkowiak pulled Tram from her self-imposed exile and gave her a specific instruction.

“You have five minutes,” Bartkowiak told Tram, “to score.”

She only needed three.

Well, make that 3:19 to be exact as Tram – a senior forward bound for Benedictine University at Springfield – wrapped a sharp shot around the near-left post off a turnover with 1:41 remaining in the second half, sending Oswego to a 1-0 Southwest Prairie Conference victory over host Plainfield Central.

Ironically, junior midfielder Hunter Coppes was credited with the assist for Oswego (6-7-3, 4-1-0), which improved its winning streak to five games. Coppes had cranked a booming shot off the crossbar with 11:57 to go in the second half, setting the stage for Tram to ace the final exam in the final minutes.

In the closing 8:28, senior defender/midfielder Kelsey Graefen brought Plainfield Central (8-8-1, 3-3-0) within inches of either taking the lead or notching the equalizer via a pair of free kicks directly outside of the box. On both shots, Graefen sailed her attempts within whiskers of the upper-corner window.

While freshman goalkeeper Amy Annala (5 saves) was rarely tested in posting the shutout, the Panthers kept senior goalkeeper Janna Pascente as busy as a traffic cop in rush hour. The Olivet Nazarene signee delivered 14 saves, with eight coming in the second half, and several were of the spectacular variety.

All of those stops by Pascente were in succession until Tram – on a quick touch by Coppes at the top of the box after a Plainfield Central turnover – tapped the ball to her left to create a shooting lane and snapped a spinning shot that dinged off the inside of the short-side post and rested in the back.

Close. Very, very close.

“I thought it was too close,” Tram admitted afterward. “I thought it was just going to hit the post, but it went right in. Personally, I felt that I had a pretty bad first half, so I sat myself out most of the second half. I needed to get myself together mentally because I was really, really frustrated with myself.”

“She has a great shot, a great foot, and we like having her looking at the net,” Bartkowiak said of Tram. “And, absolutely, you have to keep taking shots. I tell the girls all the time, ‘You can’t make them if you don’t take them.’ We kept taking them, we kept taking them, and one of them finally went in for us.”

As frustrated as Tram looked during the first half, Plainfield Central walked away with a similar collective feeling after allowing the late goal on Senior Night. Graefen (Dubuque), Pascente and injured forward Bailey Wysocki (Saginaw Valley State), out with a torn ACL, were honored in a pregame ceremony.

“We gave it away at the end,” Wildcats coach Ken Schoen said. “We definitely need to work on possession and getting more opportunities. We barely got the ball on the other side of the field in the first half. I thought the second half was more evenly matched, but one bad turnover cost us.”

It definitely did in another terrific performance by Pascente, whose 18 saves highlighted last Thursday’s 3-2 SPC victory over Oswego East in penalty kicks. Eight of those saves were in overtime, and if not for Tram’s timely conversion, another OT and PK session seemed to suit Plainfield Central and Pascente.

“She has played well for us the whole season,” Graefen said. “We wouldn’t even have gotten to PKs in the Oswego East game without her. She has had a great season and I couldn’t ask for a better goalie.”

Likewise, Graefen gave Oswego’s goalkeeper food for thought on back-to-back free kicks. The second one was even closer than the first, missing by centimeters over the crossbar as the buzzer sounded.

“A lot of our goal-scoring opportunities right now are from set plays,” Schoen pointed out. “Kelsey puts the ball in a good place and she’s really good at it. It has been big for us in a lot of games lately.”

“I could have focused more, but I only had eight seconds, so I was rushing,” Graefen said. “I think if I had 10 more seconds, I would have gotten it. But once you get those, we all have to realize we have to go quicker. On the last one, people were like, ‘OK, we have 30 seconds left.’ And, no, we have to pick it up.”

Instead, Oswego picked up the pace. The first sign of a goal-scoring possibility materialized 10 minutes before Tram’s goal when Coppes tested the strength, and the paint, of the home team’s crossbar.

“I was hoping it would sail right over the goalie’s hands, but the crossbar is always helpful for the keeper,” Coppes said. “We had a lot of opportunities to score. We were definitely getting frustrated at times as a team, but we calmed ourselves down and we kind of took control of the game from there.”

“It wasn’t our best performance,” Bartkowiak nodded. “It was a nail-biter. But we fought, and we kept fighting, to the end. And when you fight that hard, sometimes you’ll pull it out in that last minute.”

However, until Tram scored, Oswego pulled harder than a team in a tug-o-war. Junior midfielder Kendra Hughes connected on shots from overlapping runs, junior midfielder/forward Erin Apolzan had a shot and a cross that created empty-net chances and senior midfielder Lisa Bajkowski was always active.

And still, nothing.

“I love the heart this team has,” Bartkowiak said. “They have the heart. It’s one of the things coaches will tell you all the time; that you will put heart on the field over talent any day of the week. We have a lot of heart on this team and a lot of fight and I think that’s what’s carrying us through right now.”

The ultimate example was Tram. She was upset after missing on a turnaround shot from the top of the box and on a low shot from deep inside the box during the first half. But then, with 1:41 left, she did it.
The object lesson was clear.

“Coach put me back into the game and she told me I had five minutes to score,” Tram said. “I don’t know. I felt slow because the grass was so thick, I was frustrated, and it wasn’t working out for me today. I just needed to put one away. I put my head down and ripped it and hoped for the best.”