Cougars fall to rival Plainfield North
By Darryl Mellema

Playing 24 hours after suffering their first loss of the season and just a day after competing on the large field at Toyota Park, it figured Plainfield North might have some tired legs and some frustration.

And those things both existed, though you couldn’t tell by the final score – an 8-0 victory over Plainfield South.

Plainfield North lost the championship game of the Pepsi Showdown on Sunday in a penalty kick shootout to Buffalo Grove. The match lasted the regulation 80 minutes and a further 20 minutes of overtime before the shootout on the 75-yard wide pitch at Toyota Park. Plainfield North’s field is significantly thinner, but the effects of Sunday’s match were apparent.

“Oh definitely,” Plainfield North junior Shayna Dheel said. “It was a very competitive game on a huge field. It took us a little longer to get adjusted today. But once we got in it, we got rolling.”

While the Tigers (13-1, 4-0 Southwest Prairie) said they felt tiredness in their legs as the match progressed, the effect on their play was negligible.

“We were definitely feeling it throughout the entire game,” Plainfield North junior Sara Stevens said. “But we are strong enough mentally and physically and trained to the point where we can push through that and come through.”

Winning the team’s first match after suffering its first loss was important to the Tigers.

“We were 12-0 and it was our first loss of the season,” Dheel said. “But we have to have the right mindset and come back and be like ‘OK, we’ve got this.’ We have to think that if we can make it 12 games, then we can win this game, and then one more and then win the one after that.”

Through the opening 20 minutes, the teams played evenly on Monday night. And although the play slowly tipped toward the host Tigers (13-1), it still took some time for the first goal to arrive.
Dheel scored that goal when she took a Heather Handwork pass and moved in the penalty area before scoring.

“We definitely are an attacking team and even our defense is good at going forward and attacking,” Dheel said. “We go with speed too. I think we especially like to attack as a team, as well as individually.”

Plainfield North coach Jane Crowe said she was aware her team was likely to show the effects of playing on Sunday in Monday’s match. The Tigers took the field in a 4-4-2 formation they rarely use.

“It was emotionally deflating and we talked about making sure that didn’t affect us,” Crowe said. “We did come out a little slow but I think once we got the first goal, we settled down, and I was really happy with how we did today.”

After Dheel’s opening goal, the Tigers surged. Dheel nearly scored moments later, Brooke Polonus had a free kick saved and Nicki Auble headed wide.

The second goal finally came with 10:48 left in the half when Polonus hit a free kick from 20 yards just left of the penalty arc into the net.

Just 15 second later, Ashley Handwork stole the ball from a defender, moved in on a breakaway and scored to give her team a 3-0 halftime lead.

“We definitely came out strong today after yesterday,” Stevens said. “It was a disappointment and we felt that we never wanted to feel that way again. We came today to prove to ourselves and to get our confidence back after losing that game.”

Plainfield North attacked from the opening kickoff from the second half and Stevens scored after 89 seconds.

Once again, the goal sparked a Plainfield North surge. Within 14 minutes, a sequence of attacks led to the second goals of the match for both Dheel and Stevens.

“We really like to attack from the outsides, rather than just get one or two people going,” Stevens said. “We frequently have multiple people score.”

Morgan Gill made the score 7-0 with 18 minutes left and in the waning minutes of the match, Kendyl Keay scored Plainfield North’s eighth goal.

“We had two girls get their first goals today – Megan Gill and Kendyl Keay,” Crowe said. “Kendyl’s a freshman, so that’s definitely her first varsity goal and I don’t think Megan scored last year. We’re used to seeing Ashley (Handwork) score and (Stevens and Dheel) a little bit. But it was nice to get some different goalscorers.”

Plainfield North was scheduled to play St. Charles North on Monday. But with so much bad weather in northern Illinois this spring, that match had to be replaced with Plainfield South – a conference match. Crowe said the Tigers and North Stars could still play this year.

“I’m not 100 percent sure we’re not going to try to reschedule,” Crowe said. “But at this point of the season, it gets tough to try to make up games. We knew with the weather last week that we were going to have to push this game to this week. I think we would have liked to have played (St. Charles North) although it would have been tough to play them today after (Sunday.)”

Crowe said a possibility exists for the Tigers and North Stars to meet at this weekend’s Tournament of Champions. Both are in “Bracket A” and could meet on Saturday in the bracket’s title match.

“There’s only eight teams in our bracket and St. Charles North is one of them,” Crowe said.

For Plainfield South (4-2, 2-2), Monday’s match marked a return to competitive play after a frustrating sequence of cancelled matches.

“For us, this was our literally our first game in two weeks with all the rainouts and snowouts,” Plainfield South coach Dave Brown said. “We’ve had some weird scheduling quirks for this season. We knew it was going to be a battle. It’s almost been like a mini-preseason for us the last two weeks.”

With Monday’s game, the Cougars should resume a more normal sequence of match play in the final third of the season.

“Now moving forward, we want to get better every game,” Brown said. “We kind of hit the ‘reboot’ button. We play (Plainfield) Central on Thursday and we need to get up for that game in terms of intensity right away. We don’t have time to feel sorry for ourselves today. We’ve got to get back on the horse. We’ve got a good team. You could see in spurts and glimpses where we had combination play and we had some speed. We were just a little outmatched with the mistakes we made.”

Facing Plainfield North was a difficult way to be reintroduced to competitive match play, though the match was originally scheduled for last week and the two teams were always going to play at some point this season.

“We knew who we were playing,” Brown said. “A lot of our girls know their girls and a lot of them play club together. We knew it was a tough task coming in here. I felt we competed well for the first 30 minutes of the game.”

Now Brown and his team have a competitive match around which to tailor their practices in preparation for Thursday’s home match with Plainfield Central.

“To get some competition here – now the girls have a feeling of ‘OK’ now we’re back into game shape and back into game mentality and what do I need to better on Thursday and moving forward,” Brown said.

The key sequence of the match came when Polonus and Ashley Handwork scored their goals 15 seconds apart in the first half.

“Once two goals very quickly became three goals – after the free kick and the turnover off the kickoff, I think we kind of checked out a little bit,” Brown said. “We talked about what we needed to do more of at halftime in terms of keeping possession. When we can keep possession for 30-40 seconds at a time, we can’t just give them the ball right away.”

The Cougars opened the second half brightly, even taking Stevens’ goal into account.

“I think we did well in the second half,” Brown said. “Unfortunately a few mistakes in the back, a few missed saves and the game kind of overwhelmed us.”

From an educational standpoint, Brown said his team would learn from Monday’s match as they prepare for the final weeks of the regular season and the IHSA playoffs.

“When you’re playing in a sectional with Naperville Central and Naperville North and Plainfield North – they’re all top caliber teams,” Brown said. “If you’re going to beat them, you have to play pretty much a perfect game. When we’re gift wrapping goals, they’re going to take advantage of them.”