Effort lacking for Naperville Central

Plainfield North jumped on Naperville Central with a pair of goals in the first 15 minutes and they held up in a 2-0 nonconference victory in Naperville.

"The disappointed thing was I felt like we were outplayed, which even when you are a good team, can happen," Redhawks coach Ed Watson said. "But you shouldn't get outworked, especially when you've got as many girls that are getting the experience to play. Every girl who got their name called today should have given every bit of effort they had, and it was lacking today."

Sophomore Tate Barney struck first for the Tigers, using the wind to her advantage to curl in a corner kick in the 10th minute.

"We've got to make that save," Watson said. "That ball comes into the goalmouth and we let that one player that always sets on the goalkeeper bother us. If she's going to pin the goalkeeper then one of our field players has to step up and make that play."

Senior Heather Handwork made it a 2-0 deficit for the Redhawks when she connected from long-range in the 15th minute, banging a shot off the underside of the crossbar.

"We haven't practiced outside yet, because we don't have turf, so we need to use these opportunities to see what we need to work on," Tigers coach Jane Crowe said. "That was a nice start for us and we were able to use it to beat a quality team."

Naperville Central (2-1-0) created some opportunities but still proved unable to score against freshman goalie Megan Donnally. Plenty of it had to do with possessions. The Tigers dominated the midfield and won the battle of 50/50 balls.

"They did a better job of possessing and winning balls," Watson said. "When you turn teams over, you keep the ball and make teams chase. We didn't do that, and when we turned them over, we didn't press hard enough to get it back."

The combination of very little time practicing outdoors due to the weather, along with many young players, makes it very difficult to determine how successful of spring this will be for the Redhawks.

"I would love to figure out what we have before we actually start playing games, but you can't do that," Watson said. "These games right now are glorified practices. We have this on video, so now we can point out the things we have to continue to get better at."