Benet stays on attack

Benet had the perfect plan to keep Plainfield South from scoring in Wednesday's Class AA East Aurora regional semifinal: Keep the Cougars on defense.

With the ball usually 70 to 80 yards from the goal it was trying to attack, Plainfield South never managed much offense. And Benet used its nearly nonstop pressure to create a trio of goals.

Benet claimed the victory 3-0 and advances to Friday's championship match. The Redwings (8-10-1) face Batavia, a 1-0 upset winner over East Aurora in the day's other semifinal.

"We always talk about the best defense is a good offense," Benet coach Henry Wind said. "We let then counter a couple of times. But really we weren't in any trouble out there."

The key goals came late in the first half. With nine minutes left Connor Miller took an Erik Warren pass and sent a shot off Cougars goalie Kyle Fitzgerald's hands and into the net.

Four minutes later Pat Sloan hit in the Redwings' second goal.

"They're a good squad," Plainfield South coach Michael Freitag said. "There's no doubt about it. They're physically stronger than us. We're so young."

With the 2-goal cushion, Benet relaxed and kept the ball in the Plainfield South half of play nearly the entire second half.

The chances flowed. In the opening 20 minutes of the half, Kevin Kron had 2 shots saved, Dan Gonda had a volley stopped while Burke and Erik Warren also saw shots saved by Fitzgerald.

"(Fitzgerald) did a good job," Freitag said. "He's playing with a ligament in his hand that's all messed up. I give him credit for trying to overcome it."

The best effort of the sequence came 15 minutes into the half when Pat Sloan started a move by passing to Miller, who played the ball further forward to Burke, who hit the post.

Wind said having a series of injured players back helped, especially Sloan in the center of things.

"He distributed the ball well and we just kind of took control of the game," Wind said. "We moved off the ball well and we got the ball in the box."

While Wind was pleased with the extreme number of chances to score, the inability to score more was worrisome.

"I told the boys that against real good teams, you're only going to get two or three of those at the most -- and you have to finish one of two of them," Wind said. "You can't get 20 and score on three. That's the one thing we need to improve upon."