Wolves blank Plainfield East for fifth straight victory

By Eddie Burns

It has taken some time but Oswego East has found its groove on offense.

The Wolves had issues finding the back of the net in the early portion of the season but that has not been the problem as of late.

And it certainly wasn’t against Plainfield East on Tuesday afternoon as the host Wolves cruised to a fairly easy 5-0 win against the Bengals.

The Southwest Prairie Conference victory was Oswego East’s fifth straight win.

"We're finally starting to connect and find the back of the net," Wolves' coach Lauren Anderson said. "At the beginning of the year, it was a struggle for us to finish in the offensive third and it resulted in a number of close losses.

"Now, we're starting to score. I think it was a matter of time and nerves. We have a lot of new players – 10 fresh faces on varsity – over half of the team is new to varsity. A lot of our problems was chemistry and adjusting, but we're set now."

Oswego East’s Lauren Hoppensteadt started the scoring with a pair of goals in the opening 13 minutes.

Hoppensteadt said the Wolves (8-5-2) have done a much better job of applying consistent pressure on the opposition during their recent winning streak.

"There were times where we did a nice job of pushing the ball," said Hoppensteadt, who leads the squad with 14 goals.

"When scoring opportunities presented themselves we made sure we took care of them."

Brittany Brewer added her lone tally not even a minute after Hoppensteadt's second goal to make it 3-0 in the 14th minute.

Katie Ross capped the first half scoring in the 35th minute to give the Wolves a 4-0 lead at halftime.

"We've been playing our game," said Ross about the Wolves' five-game winning streak. "We're making easy, simple passes, making good runs, connecting and moving off the ball."

Sara Kibby tallied Oswego East's final goal in the 68th minute.

Wolves goalie Theresa Grandenitti earned the shutout. Grandenitti began the season as a defender but assumed the goalie role when starter Elizabeth Perez went down with an injury.

"Theresa's been doing excellent for us," Anderson said. "We were forced to put her in goal and she's been fearless and has done an excellent job."

Despite the victory, Anderson was not satisfied with the effort.

"We took a step down," Anderson said. "We didn't play to our potential. We didn't really connect that well.

"We need to step up and play the way we need to play and know how well to play. We can't take a step down – we need to get better every game and we didn't do that."

Hoppensteadt agreed with Anderson.

"We just panicked more than usual," she said. "We weren't connecting as well as we normally do. Everyone was off, but we got away with it and got the win."

The Wolves will finish the regular season at home on Thursday against SPC opponent Plainfield South.

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