Tigers post 17th shutout in win over Plainfield Central

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By Gary Larsen

Half a roster of underclassmen, a rock-solid schedule, a second consecutive conference championship, and 20 wins on the year.

If you’d have offered it all to Plainfield North coach Jane Crowe before the season started, she’d have taken it.

“We had a great season last year so we upped our schedule this year, and hoped we’d be okay playing some tougher teams,” Crowe said. “If someone told me we’d have twenty wins, I’d have been surprised. We’re still such a young team.”

Win No. 20 for the Tigers came Friday, a 2-0 victory over visiting rival Plainfield Central on Senior Day. The win for North completed a perfect 7-0 run through the Southwest Prairie Conference, during which they outscored SPC foes by a 33 to 1 margin.

An Ashley Auble penalty kick and an Ashley Handwork goal off a Callie O’Donnell cross came in the second half, as North topped a Central team that defended well throughout the contest.

“They haven’t done well in our conference but they gave us as tough a game as anyone in the conference did,” Crowe said of Central.

Season records are always tossed out the window in a good cross-town soccer game, so there was also an extra edge to the play in Friday’s game.

“They’re our rivals, and knowing it’s a conference game we went extra hard,” North defender Kelsey Allen said.

With a wind at its back in the first half, the Tigers’ attack pressured well and earned five corner kicks before the break.

“We’re happy to come away with a win, but we haven’t played a game in over a week and I think it showed. In the first half we were in their end but never created anything dangerous. We weren’t connecting,” Crowe said.

The game remained scoreless just two minutes into the second half, when North’s Ashley Auble earned a foul in the penalty area and converted the penalty kick to put her squad up 1-0.

“I thought Ashley Auble on the outside played real well today,” Crowe said. “She created the p-k and finished it, and Steph Barr played well at midfield. And I thought Ashley Handwork really stepped up in the second half for us.”

It was Handwork that gave North its second goal, on a cross from Callie O’Donnell in the game’s 70th minute, set up by a pass up the right side from Barr. The Tigers twice avoided danger in between their goals, as the Wildcats hit a pair of shots just wide of net on two counterattacks.

North goalkeeper Paige Polonus also came off her line and took a shot off the foot of Central’s Bailey Wysocki in the second half.

The Tigers’ attacking players have gotten their fair share of notice this year, but the girls in back have also played exceptional soccer this year. Friday’s win gave North its 17th shutout of the season.

Like they are seemingly all over the pitch, the Tigers are young in back, with a pair of freshmen starters in Angie Dziedzic and three sophomores in defenders Allen and Kelsey Gill, and goalkeeper Polonus.

“They’re just starting to get used to playing with each other,” Crowe said. “The season is so short. By the end of the season we’re finally starting to click. This team put a lot of pressure on them because they wanted to go forward and score, and they’ve done a great job for us all year.”

“We have a young team but we’re strong back there,” Polonus said. “We’re not all used to playing with one another but once we got going, it’s been good.”

The Tigers’ attacking players haven’t often struggled to score this year, as they did in Friday’s first half, and when they do the girls in back have got their back.

“That’s when our defense steps up even more,” Allen said. “This year we’ve gotten really better at communicating and working harder together. I think we just need to keep progressing at what we’ve been getting better at.”

The Tigers also honored their five seniors at home on Friday in Barr, Sami Smith, Paige Slowik, Emily Knightly, and Ali Cox. “They’ve been the first group that has played varsity for four years, so they’ve done a lot for us,” Crowe said.

Plainfield North (20-4-1) takes on defending Class 3A state champion Hinsdale Central in a regional opener at Neuqua Valley on Wednesday.  The Tigers are seeded No. 7 in arguably the toughest sectional in Illinois, while Hinsdale Central is the No. 10 seed.

The defending state champs may have struggled this season with the loss of some key players, “but they have girls that have played in a state championship game,” Crowe said.

Hinsdale Central, Waubonsie Valley, and Neuqua Valley are responsible for winning four of the last five team state titles in Illinois’ largest class, and all are competing this year along with the Tigers in Naperville Central’s Class 3A sectional.

The Tigers have their work cut out for them. A win over Hinsdale Central could send them to a regional title game against No. 2 Neuqua Valley.