The Plainfield East Bengals, who lost their first game of the season with a shutout on Monday, were hoping to get their offense back on track Wednesday.
No, that kind of thing happened.
Delaney Shurpuscha's two goals gave the Bengals four scorers and they continued their momentum with a 5-1 win over Joliet Catholic on Wednesday night at Joliet Memorial Stadium.
Plainfield East (1-1) should be happy with its offensive output Wednesday night after Monday's opener. The Bengals were looking for some offensive production after losing 3-0 to Sandburg and not scoring for 80 minutes. It took just seven minutes for Shrpusha to score his first goal on Wednesday, when he put the ball past the keeper and into the back of the goal.
This is an overnight effort for new head coach Rebecca Ford.
“I think they’re just starting to play well as a team,” she said. “It's a new team from last year with only three returning starters. I think it's just starting to gel.”
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/shawmedia/ZF66HMZR5JH23KEK2DTISC57DU.jpg)
Eight minutes after Schrpscha's first goal, Lizzy Knopfl put the Bengals up 2-0 with a beautiful volley in front of the goal. It stayed that way for the rest of the first half, but Plainfield East had dominant possession and looked poised to extend its lead even further in the second half.
It took less than a minute for Shrpusha to score his second goal of the tournament, capping off a scoring night.
“Delaney is a senior who is one of our leaders on and off the field,” Ford said. “When she gets going, we get energized and everyone else follows.”
However, once she entered the match, even Shrupusha would not have expected her to score goals.
“I was pretty nervous,” she said. “When I first touched the ball, I knew everything was good and I was excited to play.”
JCA will not collapse unless we fight. The Angels (0-2) got their first goal of the season when Ella Dwyer scored off a cross in the 61st minute to make it 3-1. Plainfield East took just 60 seconds to react when Maria Robertson scored through traffic in front of the net to make it 4-1.
Violet Mayer scored in the 65th minute with a long-range goal.
“We struggled a little bit with our first touch in the first half,” Shurpusha said. “We picked it up a little bit in the second half and just found some good runs. That really helped us.”
The Angels currently play a young team with four starting freshmen and three sophomores. Keeper Donica Hogan made several important saves to prevent the game from becoming more one-sided than it already was.
The Bengals themselves are by no means experienced swimmers. As Ford said, only three starters returned from last year's team and only four seniors started against JCA. Although they looked pretty polished at Joliet Memorial Stadium, Shrapsha cautions the team still needs to keep learning.
“We have to keep working and stay humble,” she said. “We can't go into the next game thinking it's going to be an easy win. We've got to keep working and showing up.”
It will be a quick turnaround for the Bengals as they play Guilford on Thursday as part of the Barb Fest Tournament. JCA will play Morris Saturday at 10 a.m.
