Tigers' first-half outburst too much for Metea Valley
By Darryl Mellema

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One of the more stunning offensive performances this season took place in the opening quarter of the match played on Friday night between Plainfield North and Metea Valley.

The surprise wasn't that Plainfield North scored 4 goals and won a match 4-0 – the Tigers have scored goals in huge numbers this year and have only been shut out once this season.

The shocker was that this offensive outburst came at the expense of Metea Valley – which had allowed only 8 goals in 17 matches leading into the match, and 3 of those came in a wild 4-3 victory over Neuqua Valley.

More incredible was the speed with which Plainfield North built the lead. After waiting 12 minutes to get on the board, the 4 goals were scored in just under 10 minutes.

“Being up 4-0 20 minutes in was crazy,” Plainfield North's Callie O'Donnell said. “We weren't expecting that. We were expecting a tough game – and it was tough. It's just that all of our shots went in.”

Plainfield North and Metea Valley seemed on a collision course to meet two weeks ago, but each team lost in the Pepsi Showdown semifinals. The teams could yet meet again in the postseason in the second round in the Class 3A regional hosted by Metea Valley.

“We talked before the game that there is a good chance we could meet them again,” Plainfield North coach Jane Crowe said. “We needed to come out in this game and learn some things. We needed to figure out what's going to work against this team and what's not. I think we go into the tournament sometimes and feel a little intimidated.”

Despite the victory margin, Crowe didn't want her team to start overstating what it had accomplished. She also mentioned that her team has a tricky opening-round match with Oswego that her team dare not look past.

“I want them to understand that this is still a good team,” Crowe said of Metea Valley. “They are not going to let us come out and score 4 goals in 10 minutes again like we did. But I think it definitely gives us the confidence that we need.”

But the Tigers (16-3-1) were a happy bunch leaving the field, knowing they had defeated a very strong Metea Valley (14-4) squad.

“This gives us confidence,” Metea Valley's Sara Stevens said. “It felt good to be on the field and that we were accomplishing something.”

Stevens scored two of the Tigers' goals. Ashley Handwork put the hosts ahead with a close-range shot with 28:25 left in the half.

Stevens was taken down in the penalty area with 23:19 showing, and she converted the ensuing penalty kick. Stevens scored again 90 seconds later to put her team ahead 3-0.

“It feels good since I was in a kind of slump,” Stevens said. “I hadn't been able to score and I was putting pressure on myself. To get those two goals and to get such a win for our team is really good.”

The last of the Tigers' goal quartet was a long-range cannon off the foot of O'Donnell.

“I was not expecting to be able to shoot that far,” O'Donnell said. “I saw the goalie stepped out and I took the shot. I was lucky it went in for me.”

Players sometimes have a sense when they hit the ball that it has a chance to score or not. O'Donnell had a good feeling as the 35-yard shot left her foot.

“It felt right is all I can say,” O'Donnell said. “I couldn't tell it was going in, but it just felt right.”

After quipping that he wanted to see how his team might play from behind, Metea Valley coach Pat Feulner turned very serious in assessing the nature of the defeat.

“This is going to be fresh in our minds,” Feulner said. “We want to take it, learn from it and move on.”

While Metea Valley felt aggrieved at the penalty kick call, the on-field response frustrated Feulner. From 2-0 after Stevens scored the spot kick, the lead doubled to 4-0 in 5 minutes.

“After the penalty kick, we kind of lost our composure,” Feulner said. “I talked to them at halftime about it and we can't have that. We need our senior-level players to step up and take charge and keep our composure. Even with the penalty kick, it would have been a lot nicer looking at that board at 2-0 rather than 4-0. Then if we had gotten a goal, we would have been back in the game.”

Behind 4-0, Feulner changed the focus for his team and tried to get them playing their style of soccer and to see what would happen.

“We told them at halftime that it was a 0-0 score,” Feulner said. “I told them that if they're going to worry about the score, it's going to be 6-0. It was 0-0, take it one goal at a time and try to beat them in the second half. You spot a team like this 4 goals and it's going to be a long night.”

Despite the final score, Feulner saw things he could take away positively from the match. After the onslaught, the Mustangs rallied and got to halftime without falling further behind.

Then at the start of the second half, Metea Valley went on a 10-minute surge of its own. Most of the chances fell for Jenna Kentgen, who headed wide 4 minutes into the half, forced a save 1 minute and had another effort saved after 16 minutes. Kristina Tomaras hit the crossbar in that sequence as the Mustangs came close repeatedly to scoring.

“In the second half, it could easily have been 4-3 and maybe we would have been pushing them a bit,” Feulner said.

And Feulner took nothing away from Plainfield North's attack. The Tigers have scored 86 goals this year.

“They've got good kids up top,” Feulner said. “I told my kids that they're almost a mirror image of Neuqua. They play direct, try to knock the ball over the top and outrun you. They play the flanks, attack the flanks and then come in hard off the flanks. I think we were prepared for it and for the first 10 minutes, I think we did pretty well trapping them on the sidelines. And then we kind of lost our composure a little bit. We had 20 minutes of disaster.”

With one week to go in the regular season, the Mustangs have one regular-season match remaining, a Tuesday encounter at East Aurora. While an expected victory may not seem like much, the game has massive significance to Metea Valley, which wins the Upstate Eight Conference Valley Division with a victory.

“We are focused on East Aurora,” Feulner said. “We can win the first conference championship of any team in school history, and that's a big step for these kids. We focus on East Aurora and then put that out of our minds and then go back to playing one game at a time in state.”

Plainfield North has one more massive nonconference game left when it travels to Naperville North on Monday. The Tigers have already clinched the Southwest Prairie Conference title for the second consecutive year but finish the conference schedule at Minooka on Thursday.

“They have prom (Saturday) so who knows how they will come out on Monday,” Crowe said. “But we are going to take that game as preparation for the postseason. If we can play with Naperville North, I think that gives us confidence that we can play with anybody. Then even though we have clinched the conference championship, we still want to make sure we win that (Minooka) game. And then we have Oswego in the first round. They have a good goalkeeper and they have stayed in some games and they tied Waubonsie (Valley).”

Crowe said her team likes to attack so much that she literally has to rein them in at times.

“At halftime, they were talking about wanting to score another goal or more rather than just saying 'why don't we keep them off the board and we'll be fine.'” Crowe said.

When Metea Valley pushed and saves were needed, Emily Brodict made them. First half keeper Paige Polunus had a relatively quiet 40 minutes while the Tigers built their lead. Brodict was under more pressure.

“We really don't have a backup keeper,” Crowe said. “They both are so good that sometimes one plays and sometimes the other one plays and we know we can count on both of them to make saves – and (Brodict) made some great saves today.”