The smile on the face of Shawna Watson spoke volumes. The scrappy Plainfield Central freshman forward kicked off Friday’s offense-only first half by scoring the first goal of her high school career.

Mallory Feinstein, a senior forward who plans on giving up soccer to become a student in the fall at the University of Illinois, then turned up the volume for Hinsdale Central with three consecutive goals.

And she was all smiles as well.

“You know what, it worked,” Feinstein said, grinning about playing like a magnet to the ball. “We worked on that a lot in practice, just keeping the ball and possessing, and we needed to get goals. What we did by keeping the ball worked out, we found the openings there, and we were able to score.”  

On a cold, ugly, winter-like afternoon where many defensive maneuvers were an adventure, the able Feinstein scored in bunches. She ended up with a career-best four goals, including the natural hat trick, as young Hinsdale Central overwhelmed the younger host Wildcats for a 5-2 nonconference victory.

Sophomore midfielder Darby Moran managed a goal and a pair of assists for Hinsdale Central (4-3-1), which has a modest 2-0-1 streak going. Senior forward/midfielder Eryka Hawkins added two assists, while senior midfielder Drea Issleib and sophomore defender Casey May also had assists.

Along with an assist by junior midfielder Britney Lenza on Watson’s goal, Plainfield Central (1-4-1) received 11 saves from senior goalkeeper Janna Pascente. The Wildcats were closer than the final score indicated, with a sharp shot by senior forward/midfielder Bailey Wysocki whistling off the left post.

However, after that near-miss with the game tied 1-1 at 21:01 left in the first half, Armageddon followed from the Red Devils. Feinstein scored again at 19:36 remaining for the 2-1 lead before Feinstein and Moran teamed up on back-to-back goals in a 39-second span for the insurmountable 4-1 advantage.

Although sophomore defender Alex Lopez scored from an impossible angle with 3:27 until halftime, slicing the deficit for Plainfield to 4-2, Hinsdale was sitting pretty in the driver’s seat. And Feinstein threw the transmission of that car into overdrive with her fourth goal a mere 4:10 into the second half.

Talk, sometimes, is not cheap.

“We did talk about that,” Hinsdale Central coach Skip Begley confirmed. “I think you could see a couple of the goals came from not going forward initially – just trying to keep the ball a couple of seconds and then finding the open player. If we can pass the ball, we can get the same kind of penetrating runs.”

“We came up with a lot of through balls and a lot of our goals were scored because of that,” said Moran, who produced her goal and two assists in the first half. “They scored the first goal right away, but we were able to come right back and we had it. It was good, and (Mallory) had a really good game, too.”

Meanwhile, Plainfield Central was coming off one of its best games, period – a 1-0 loss Thursday in the Pepsi Showdown to New Trier, which had entered the season as the No. 2-ranked team in the Chicagoland area by the Sun-Times. Watson’s goal in the sixth minute should have been a boost.

But … poof.

“Poof,” Plainfield Central coach Ken Schoen agreed. “We had a bit of a letdown and I’m not sure what happened. We have to get a consistent effort, especially after last night. We had a great effort for 80 minutes, played great in the first 15 minutes here and kind of gave up the next 15. And that’s the game.”

Game on for the Wildcats meant Lenza dribbled the ball up the middle of Hinsdale’s defensive third and, once contested, flicked a pass over to Watson on the left flank. Her shot floated into the wind and eluded the outstretched arms of freshman goalkeeper Riley Glenn (5 saves) for the 1-0 lead.

“For it being my first goal, I was very excited,” Watson said. “Once one goal goes in, you start thinking you’re definitely going to score some more, and I thought we were going to start putting them in. But we just weren’t consistent. Coach talked to us at halftime and that brought us back up a little bit.”

Indeed, the second half turned into a stalemate of sorts, but not before Lopez completed a long run down the right sideline with a shot – well, perhaps a shot – that spiraled into the short-side corner.

“I think that might have been a cross, but we’ll take it,” Schoen said with a laugh. “It was a nice job by Alex, and Shawna gave the ball a good strike on her goal. That should be a nice confidence-booster for her, and you couldn’t have asked for anything more than the way we controlled the pace at the start.”

The rest of the gloomy day, though, belonged to an upbeat, up-tempo Hinsdale Central. A through-ball feed by Moran resulted in a left-footed shot under the crossbar by Feinstein for the equalizer. Hawkins’ dash up the center and dish to Feinstein for a one-touch shot into the lower-right corner was a beaut.

Consider that an answer.

“Exactly, exactly,” Feinstein said. “They got up 1-0 and we kind of put our heads down, but we kept our composure and kept going, which was good. In previous games, we’ve put our heads down and that was the end. But it was easier to get the second one after the first, and after the second, we just kept going.”

“Mallory and Eryka are both capable of that,” Begley said. “Defensively, Plainfield came right down the middle right off the bat, stuck one in the middle of the net, and that’s never a good feeling. But the girls did a nice job of not panicking, they got their feet back underneath them and they finished it off.”

From there, the Red Devils’ finish was as good as varnish. Hawkins took a through-ball pass from Moran, went end line and crossed to Feinstein for an empty-net tap-in goal at 15:47 left. Moran converted the rebound of Issleib’s shot 39 seconds later for a 4-1 lead that seemed safer than a Hummer in traffic.

“We had a shot, but it was deflected, and it was kind of bouncing around,” Moran said. “I just got to it.”

After Feinstein buried May’s long-ball pass on a breakaway to culminate the scoring, it concluded a week of goals that could be as good as it gets for the Red Devils. They beat Proviso West 6-0 on Tuesday.

“It’s certainly better than anything else we’ve done this year,” Begley said. “We’re asking them not to get into that kick and run, kick and run. We want to hold the ball, keep it at our feet, and if we have to play backward, fine. Don’t give it right back to them because scoring is going to be huge for us.”

Feinstein was XXL in that category Friday.