Tigers win SPC rivalry game vs. Plainfield East

 

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By Ken Ryan

Plainfield North midfielder Austin Abbott may just be a sophomore, but he is well versed in the rivalry with Plainfield East.

“My brothers played here and I know all about it,” said Abbott, who played on varsity with his graduated brother Alex last season as a freshman. “I have a couple friends on the (Plainfield East) team and we all kind of just bicker back and forth. It’s always nice to win.”

Abbott helped Plainfield North pull out a tense 3-2 Southwest Prairie Conference victory over the host Bengals.

He converted a penalty kick after teammate Robert Perez was taken down inside the box to give the Tigers the lead for good at 2-1 with 6:03 remaining in the opening half.

“There was a lot of pressure on me, but I do well under pressure,” Abbott said. “We all played amazing and stepped up as a unit and I felt like I had to put the team on my back and make the kick. I just picked a spot and buried it in the back of the net. Coach (Jim O’Hara) has a lot of confidence in all of us and I just stepped up to the plate.”

Plainfield North (7-4-1 overall, 2-1 in SPC) added an insurance goal when Colin Donnally scored his second goal of the game with 24:30 left in regulation to give his team a seemingly comfortable 3-1 advantage.

The momentum of the game changed immediately, however.

Right after the goal, a Plainfield North player was given a red card because of language and the Tigers were forced to play the rest of the game a man down.

“It’s crazy pressure,” said Plainfield North senior goalkeeper Jordan Collier, who came up big with nine saves. “They were pressing hard in the end and we couldn’t get an attack going. We just had to hold our own and we did. I like the pressure a lot. I just know I can’t make any mistakes. I have to communicate and tell everyone where they need to be the whole time and make sure we don’t make any stupid mistakes.

“There’s been bad blood for years between the teams. It’s a good rivalry and our team held strong in the end with 10 guys and looked pretty good. We got goals early and that was the difference.”

Plainfield East (4-7), which lost to Plainfield North 5-3 in the third-place game of the Lemont Invitational Sept. 3, didn’t go down easily.

The Bengals pulled within 3-2 when a hard shot by Cristian Valdez deflected off a Plainfield North defender for an own goal with 20:46 remaining. Plainfield East applied heavy pressure the rest of the contest, including a rocket shot by Dominick Sullivan that banged off the post with 4:10 left, but the Tigers were up to the challenge each time and held on for the victory.

“I was pretty nervous for the last 15 minutes,” O’Hara said. “They scored the one goal when we were down on a deflection, which was a bad break for us. Our guys had to battle. They could’ve put their heads down because a lot of things weren’t going our way, but they didn’t. They made every shot and every pass they had a very difficult one. I give a lot of credit to the guys that were out there. They were bringing a lot of pressure and it was difficult, but we outlasted them.”

O’Hara was pleased to pull out the victory against a respected rival.

“These guys live five minutes down the street from each other,” O’Hara said. “The players all know each other from different clubs and from where they live and growing up together. It’s a very solid rivalry and it’s phenomenal.

“We had a big lead on them the first time we played them and they came right back fighting. We got a lead again and they don’t back down. We met the challenge.”

Plainfield North got on the board first when Donnally knocked in a corner kick from Niko Tapia just 4:47 into the game. Plainfield East evened the score at 1-1 six minutes later.

Donnally’s two goals give him 14 on the season.

“He’s been an absolute machine,” O’Hara said. “He has non-stop work ethic and he’s a leader at practice and on the field. What you see on the field is exactly what he is as a person and in the classroom. He has a 5.3 (grade-point average) out of 5. He’s carried us.

“The best thing about him is he’s not a selfish player. He’s team first with everything. You think of him as a goal scorer, but that’s not him. He wants team success first, which is an unbelievable attribute.”