Girls soccer: Plainfield East offense dominates in 5-1 win over Joliet Catholic

JOLIET – After dropping their first game of the girls soccer season Monday in shutout fashion, the Plainfield East Bengals were hoping to get the offense flowing on Wednesday.

Boy, did they ever.

Delaney Shrupsha’s two-goal effort led four goal scorers for the Bengals as they started hot and never let up in a 5-1 victory over Joliet Catholic on Wednesday night at Joliet Memorial Stadium.

Plainfield East (1-1) has to feel good about the offensive production it got Wednesday after Monday’s opener. The Bengals fell to Sandburg 3-0 and were in search of some offensive production after not scoring in 80 minutes. They needed only seven minutes Wednesday to pick up their first goal when Shrupsha got the ball past the keeper.

It’s an effort new head coach Rebecca Ford will take any night.

“I think the girls are just starting to play well together as a team,” she said. “It’s a brand new team from last year with only three returning starters. I think they’re just starting to jell.”

Shrupsha’s first goal was followed eight minutes later by an impressive volley in front of the goal by Lizzy Knoepfle to put the Bengals up 2-0. That’s how it remained the rest of the opening half, but Plainfield East was dominant in its possession and looked poised to extend the lead even further in the second.

It didn’t even take a full minute into the second to do just that as Shrupsha picked up her second goal of the contest to complete her scoring.

“Delaney is a senior who is one of our leaders on and off the field,” Ford said. “When she gets going, it gets our energy going, and everyone else kind of follows.”

Yet coming into the game, even Shrupsha wouldn’t have expected her goal-scoring effort.

“I was feeling pretty nervous,” she said. “Once I touched the ball for the first time, I knew it was all good and I got excited to play.”

JCA wouldn’t go down without a fight. The Angels (0-2) picked up their first goal of the season in the 61st minute when Ella Dwyer scored off a cross to cut the deficit to 3-1. Plainfield East needed only 60 seconds to respond when Malia Robertson scored through some heavy traffic in front of the net to make it 4-1.

Violet Meija completed the scoring with a long distance goal in the 65th minute.

“We struggled a little bit in the first half in our first touch,” Shrupsha said. “We picked it up in the second half a bit and just found the right runs. That really helped us out.”

The Angels are playing with a young squad right now as they started four freshmen and three sophomores. Keeper Donica Hogan made a few critical saves to prevent the game from being even more one sided than it was.

The Bengals aren’t exactly swimming in experience themselves. As Ford said, there’s just three returning starters from last year’s squad and they started just four seniors against JCA. They looked plenty polished at Joliet Memorial Stadium, though, Shrupsha cautions that the team still needs to continue learning.

“We’ve got 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 have to keep working and showing up.”

JCA takes on Morris at 10 a.m. Saturday.