Girls Soccer: Plainfield North knocks out Oswego
Back-to-back goal scoring in the first and second half enabled Plainfield North to dispatch Oswego 4-0 in Wednesday’s second contest of the Class 3A Metea Valley Regional.
The victory for the No. 5-ranked Tigers boosted their record to 18-3-2 heading into Friday’s regional title contest against host Metea Valley. Plainfield North hopes to produce an encore to an earlier 4-0 triumph over the Mustangs, currently No. 11 in Sun-Times polling.
The Tigers claimed the Southwest Prairie Conference crown with an unblemished 7-0 record that included a 2-0 mid-April win over Oswego, the SPC runner-up which had its season ended with an 8-12-2 ledger.
“We came out a little slow, but getting that first goal took the pressure off us in terms of having gotten two late goals to beat them before,” Plainfield North coach Jane Crowe said.
With Oswego packing the defensive end in a 5-4-1 formation, the first-half offense was all Tigers but the opening strike came with 13:45 left before intermission off a corner kick by Callie O’Donnell. North’s Ashley Auble, one of five sister combinations for the Tigers, had a sharp eight-yard header from the right side into the left side netting.
“Callie knows to look for someone and it was just a perfect corner,” Auble said. “I noticed their keeper was more to the near side, so I went far side.”
Less than two minutes later, O’Donnell set up Ashley Handwork for a 10-yarder from the right wing for a 2-0 lead. In the second half, O’Donnell used a through ball from Heather Handwork for a goal with 27:39 left to be played. Just 32 seconds later, Ashley Handwork set up Kaela Leskovar for the last strike.
“We left one player unmarked on that corner kick and it really cost us. Callie then showed why she’s an all-state player,” Oswego coach Jamie Bartkowiak said. “For a minute and half the game slipped away from us in each half; the rest of the time we fought them and I thought we had a lot to be proud of.”
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