By Matt Le Cren
For the Bugle
Plainfield North soccer player Nathan Green had a good feeling going into Monday’s Class 3A regional quarterfinal game at crosstown rival Plainfield South.
Yes, Green and his teammates had lost 1-0 to the Cougars on Oct. 3.
Yes, the underdog Tigers were seeded 18th, four slots lower than Plainfield South, and yes, North was struggling through one of its toughest seasons.
But Green had seen a difference in his team’s play over the past few weeks.
“We thought we were going to be really good this year,” Green said. “We started off good, got a little bit slow in the middle and then we figured out our tempo and what we were going to do. We came back.”
Indeed they did. Ryley Burich and Oliver Fisher scored in regulation and Green buried the go-ahead penalty kick as the Tigers (8-16) upset the Cougars 3-2 on penalty kicks. They won the shootout 4-3 as Plainfield South missed its first and last attempts.
“I thought we played well a couple weeks ago, probably should have won that,” Green said. “We just gave up a bad goal. We definitely outworked them in this game.”
The Cougars (11-8-1) actually outshot the Tigers 18-6 through 100 minutes of regulation and two overtimes and dominated the action in the second half.
But the visitors, who never trailed, struck first when Burich got to a loose ball in the box and scored on a 10-yard shot at the 28:27 mark of the first half.
“Getting that first goal early I think really gave us the momentum,” Burich said. “(The win) is huge. We knew we had to get a result to continue the season.”
Plainfield South got the equalizer less than five minutes later. Anthony Marmolejo scored on a 23-yard free kick that went just under the crossbar.
But the Tigers stunned the Cougars again, retaking the lead with 17:08 left in the first half on a nifty give-and-go between Fisher and Adan Juarez.
Fisher, a defender, passed up the left side to Juarez and made an overlap run into the penalty area, where Juarez fed him a perfect lead pass that led to an easy finish.
“It’s really hard for teams to pick up, especially when an outside back comes into the attack and gets around (the defense) like that,” Burich said of the play. “I think that really caught them by surprise. It was a good run.”
After that, it was the Cougars who made a good run at getting a playoff win. They nearly tied it with 50 seconds to go in the first half, but Anthony Cervelli’s open shot in the box was rejected by North goalie Calvin Cangillak and Maxwell Treptow’s rebound hit the outside of the left post.
Cangillak, who finished with six saves, made another stop when he came out and punched at Ryan Kabaker’s free kick from midfield. But the ball went straight to sophomore Carlos Sagols, who rolled a 10-yard shot inside the left post with 11:48 remaining in the second half.
Despite several other chances, the Cougars did not score again.
“We’re really proud of the effort the boys gave,” Plainfield South coach Bryant Williams said. “We battled hard for 100 minutes against them.
“As I told the boys, we were just really unlucky. Especially that first 10 minutes of overtime, I felt like we really dominated.
“We created some chances. We just couldn’t get the ball in the net.”
That proved true in the shootout as well. Marmolejo, Christian Gonzalez and Sagols all made their penalties, with Sagols tying the shootout at 3-3 after the Tigers had led 2-0.
South goalie Quinton Rose saved North’s fourth shot, but Brian Bertoni, Burich, Kanan Woodill and Green made their shots for the winners.
“We were frustrated with ourselves (after overtime) but we were still confident,” Green said. “We knew what to do, we were controlled and we were good. We came to finish what we started.”
Now the Tigers get a chance to avenge another defeat when they host third-seeded Plainfield Central in Wednesday’s semifinals.
North lost 3-1 in double overtime to the Wildcats on Sept. 30 but has won four of its last five games.
“We’re ready,” Green said. “We played well against them too but we just fell short in overtime.
“I think some of our players got kind of tired. We’ll be ready for them.