Tigers fall to Bison on penalties in Pepsi Showdown finals
By Steve Millar
Buffalo grove midfielder Skylar Groth called it “surreal.” Bison coach Pat Dudle said he was “on cloud nine.”
The Bison were overcome with emotions Sunday. In its first appearance in the Pepsi Showdown, Buffalo Grove captured the tournament title, topping Plainfield North 2-1 in penalty kicks in the championship game at Toyota Park.
“I can’t believe the girls got to experience Toyota Park,” Dudle said. “It’s something they can tell their grandkids about. Just playing here was special, then to win it, it’s amazing.”
The two teams, who both entered the match unbeaten, staged a classic bout for 100 minutes that were certainly worthy of a championship game before Buffalo Grove (15-0-1) connected on all four of its penalty kicks to win the shootout 4-2.
Allie Ingham, Groth and Kelli Zickert scored for the Bison in the shootout before senior midfielder Carly Brown delivered the clincher, scoring on a line drive inside the right post.
Plainfield North (12-1) got off to a rough start when its initial shooter Kaela Leskovar hit the post.
“They got unlucky and we get more confidence in our shots, then Sarah (O’Connor) had a big save to kind of seal it,” Groth said.
O’Connor’s save on Heather Handwork’s shot gave the Bison a 3-1 lead through three rounds of the shootout.
“I saw her looking to her left, to my right,” O’Connor said. “She just kind of stared there, so I just kind of picked a side and hoped for the best. That’s the way to go on PKs.”
Nikki Auble and Ashley Handwork found the net for the Tigers in the shootout, but it wasn’t enough.
“I hate for games to end in PKs,” Plainfield North coach Jane Crowe said. “You’d like to see someone end it on the field with a goal. I think they had great chances, we had some chances. It could have gone either way, but I think they were very deserving. It was a great game itself. You just hate for it to end that way.
“They’re a very good team. They’re the best team we’ve seen all year. We just talked about in the locker room how playing a team like this is going to prepare us for what we need to do in the postseason. Games like this will get us ready for when we get to a regional final or maybe a sectional. I think, even though it’s tough to lose, it’s definitely going to prepare us for what’s ahead.”
The Tigers got off to a fast start, creating some strong early chances, and cashed in in the fifth minute when Heather Handwork made a strong rush down the left side and slipped the ball ahead to her sister, Ashley, in the middle of the box.
Ashley finished on a shot inside the right post for her 17th goal of the season.
“I saw Ashley was open in the middle and she had a better angle for the shot than I did, so I passed it to her,” Heather Handwork said.
The goal happened despite Buffalo Grove’s focus on stopping Ashley Handwork.
“I think Ashley was one of the best players we’ve seen,” Dudle said. “She’s a phenomenal athlete and a great soccer talent. We tried to make a game plan to slow her down. We had some early jitters and some turnovers that were uncharacteristic, and of course a great player is going to capitalize on that.
“I have such confidence in these girls, though. We’re a true team. We make the ball move quickly. We’re so unselfish. I thought we could equalize later in the game.”
The Bison had plenty of chances to find the equalizer in the first half, but were denied by Erin Wren, who had four of her 10 saves before the break.
Wren twice stopped Zickert on breakaways, coming out of the net to smother the Bison star’s shot attempts.
The Tigers goalie made another fine play to break up a Zickert chance in the second half, using a sliding kick to boot the ball out of trouble as Zickert tried to dribble around her.
“I like to play aggressive,” Wren said. “I grew up in a hockey family and in hockey you have to be aggressive. I have an older brother and we often wrestled a lot. I like to get big and get in the way. I came out a lot and the defense did a great job of getting the second ball out. Our defense played well today, unfortunately it just didn’t go our way in the shootout.”
As the missed chances mounted for Buffalo Grove, so did the frustration.
“We missed a lot of opportunities,” Groth said. “I have to give credit to their goalie. She really stepped up. She was able to stop Kelli Zickert, who is a phenomenal striker. We missed some chances and it was tough, but at the end of the day we did just enough to win.”
Buffalo Grove came up empty on five consecutive corner kicks midway through the second half.
Moments later, though, the Bison broke through.
JayJay Lowery collected the ball just past midfield and lobbed a pass into the box, where Sara Busse corralled it and beat Wren with a rolling shot inside the far post.
“JayJay played a really great ball,” Busse said. “I looked over my shoulder and saw it was just me and the defender. I just turned and shot far post. It really got our momentum going and we played our game, got our quick passing going and played hard.
“It’s still unreal. Just the feeling of scoring at Toyota Park. It’s amazing.”
It’s a feeling that none of the Bison were ready to let go of Sunday.
“I’m not planning to do any homework (Sunday night),” Groth said. “To be honest, I can’t go from this amazing experience to just doing work. That’s how I plan to celebrate.”
O’Connor made five saves, including a terrific lunging stop to deny Ashley Handwork with 18 minutes left in regulation after Handwork had beaten three defenders to get a shot off.
Despite the loss, it was a memorable march to the title game for the Tigers.
“It’s been an amazing run to get this far,” Ashley Handwork said. “We’ve been so excited just to get this far and we’re hoping to continue our season.”
North doesn’t have long to let its wounds heal, as it was set to host Plainfield South on Monday night.
“We have to come back ready to go,” Crowe said. “We talked about making sure we realize this isn’t the end of the season. We have a lot of things ahead and we have to make sure this loss doesn’t set us back and instead we continue to push forward.”
Dudle also sees bigger things ahead for his team.
“Going into this tournament, we thought it might simulate a regional, a sectional then this championship was like a supersectional or a state final game,” he said. ”So it will give us some seasoning and hopefully give us some confidence to reach another of our goals and go deep into the playoffs.”
