Girls Soccer: Mikayla Lambert, Oswego East shake off slow start, beat Plainfield South to reach regional final

AURORA – Mikayla Lambert and Oswego East could be excused for believing that they were the victims of bad luck in the early going Tuesday.

The Wolves had three shots in the first half bounce off the crossbar, one by Lambert. Two other attempts hit the post.

The ball seemed like it was a magnet for anything but the net.

“We were all just very shook, but we were like ‘OK, we’re going to finish,’” said Lambert, an Oswego East senior. “We just had to take our time and focus and that’s what we did.”

Indeed they did.

Chloe Noon broke the scoreless tie with a beautiful goal off a corner kick in the game’s 36th minute. Lambert added two goals, and third-seeded Oswego East beat 14th-seeded Plainfield South 3-0 in the Class 3A East Aurora Regional semifinal.

Oswego East (17-2) advances to face Oswego, a 6-1 winner over East Aurora, in a regional final scheduled for 4 p.m. Friday. The Wolves, back-to-back Southwest Prairie Conference champions, will be looking to make history – the program’s first-ever regional title. Oswego East won the regular-season crosstown meeting 3-0.

“We’re really excited,” Lambert said. “We know Oswego will come out hard because we played them last time.”

The Wolves had handled Plainfield South 8-1 during the regular season, but struggled to find the range to get separation from the Cougars early despite dominating the run of play.

Oswego East out-shot Plainfield South 17-0 in the first half, but only scored one goal. In one wild series of events late in the half, Noon hit a shot off the post, two rebound shots were blocked and a fourth Wolves’ shot went off the crossbar.

“And then a couple point-blank shots missed,” said Oswego East coach Juan Leal, whose team was without sophomore midfielder Riley Gumm but will have her back for the regional final. “Defensively they [Plainfield South] stacked very well, they took away our passing lanes and the through balls we wanted to get, they read the passing lanes well. Give them credit. They parked the bus, they wanted us to play wide, compacted and took away passing lanes. They played a good strategy.”

There was no defense, though, for Noon’s brilliant corner that broke the scoreless tie.

Standing in the left corner, she curled a shot just inside the far right post for a 1-0 lead with 4:14 left in the half.

“It was really nice,” Leal said. “I know she wasn’t expecting it, she was just hoping to get something back post. The ball just bent and got where it needed to be after all the shots we had. It was nice, gave us a little more energy after struggling to put the ball in the back of the net.”

Anya Gulbrandsen, who had a shot hit the crossbar in the final minutes of the half and pushed a point-blank shot wide early in the second, finally was on the giving end of an Oswego East goal. Her cross to Lambert with 15:20 left made it 2-0.

Lambert later rebounded a shot inside the left post for the final score with 42 seconds left.

“I think we thought this would be an easy game but they played pretty well from the beginning and we were not ready for it,” Lambert said. “But the second half we came out hard and finished our chances.”