Boys soccer: Plainfield North cruises to 8-0 win over Plainfield South

PLAINFIELD – This is starting to become a habit for Owen Taylor.

The Plainfield North senior had a hat trick with three goals over the weekend in a win over East Aurora at the Plainfield Classic. On Tuesday, he did it again in an 8-0 win over Southwest Prairie Conference and District 202 rival Plainfield South. What’s more, all of his goals were in the first half.

Taylor opened the scoring, putting in a rebound off his own shot with 30:26 left in the first half. At the 21:04 mark, Taylor took a pass from teammate Luis Sanchez. Less than two minutes later, with 19:16 to play in the half, Taylor scored unassisted to give the Tigers (7-4, 1-1) a 3-0 lead, which they took into halftime.

“It was nice to get a win in the conference, especially against one of the other Plainfield schools.”

—  Owen Taylor, Plainfield North boys soccer

“I had a hat trick earlier against East Aurora,” Taylor said. “We moved the ball well and scored a lot of goals. That was our game plan coming into this game.

“It was nice to get a win in the conference, especially against one of the other Plainfield schools.”

In the second half, Sanchez, a sophomore, took center stage as he put home a goal with 36:41 left to play, then scored off an assist from Franco Messer at the 32:31 mark. A goal by Yazan Rahmah with 22:37 to play put North ahead 6-0, and a score by Marcel Trifan with 11:23 remaining made it 7-0 and cut the remaining time in half.

North closed the scoring soon after, as Josiah Horner scored with 5:13 remaining to provide the final goal.

While the Tigers offense was in control most of the match, the defense, spearheaded by Nolan Weber, Aidan Smith, Jaden Gruben and Luke Radcliff and goalkeeper Ben Feldman, kept the Cougars (1-12, 0-5) off the scoreboard.

“This was a nice win for us,” North coach Lukasz Majewski said. “We had good balance on offense, and it was nice to get a conference win. The boys really like to get a win against another Plainfield school, because it gives them some bragging rights.

“Last year, we had 17 seniors, so we have a lot of new blood coming in this year. We are still trying to figure some things out, but we are getting there. Owen Taylor had a nice night, and he seems to have found something with a hat trick in two straight games.

“Defensively, we have been keeping the other teams’ scores low, but we haven’t been scoring goals at the rate we did last year. The kids are learning that JV soccer is not varsity soccer. The speed and physicality is a lot greater at this level.

“It was nice that we were able to get a lot of guys into the game and see what they could do tonight. We have a tough rest of the week with Plainfield Central coming up, and then we play West Aurora at Aurora University, so that will be fun for the kids.”

Plainfield South also lost a wealth of experience from last year’s team.

“This was a tough one,” South coach Nick Skrip said. “We have a lot of first-year varsity players, and sometimes that inexperience at the varsity level shows. The speed of play and how physical it is at the varsity level is tough to adjust to.

“We tried a couple of different things tonight, and we had some good performances from a few guys. We can take something from this game. There were some kids that wanted to step up, and we can move forward with that.”