Hinsdale Central offense off to great start

Hinsdale Central girls soccer coach Michael Smith wasn't expecting the Red Devils' offense to be as free flowing and tactically sound in the season opener against West Chicago, but he certainly won't complain about it.

The Red Devils beat West Chicago 7-0 behind a hat trick from Alix McArthur in both teams' season opener at West Chicago on Tuesday.

"The one thing that we try to do program-wide is that we create an environment, give the girls some suggestions and they work off it," Smith said. "At this stage of the season, typically your offense isn't as fluid as what we saw tonight, so it'll be interesting to see over the next matches how does that evolve."

With three goals in the first 15 minutes, Hinsdale Central took advantage of some poor man marking by the Wildcats, who couldn't handle the movement of forwards McArthur and Sydney Griffin.

Griffin struck first in the sixth minute, taking a through ball that split the defense from McArthur and sliding it past the goalkeeper.

Seven minutes later it was Griffin with the splitting through ball, and McArthur toe poking the ball into the net. McArthur got her second in the 15th minute off a corner with a wide-open header in the 6-yard box.

"The excitement is there in their play," Smith said of his offense. "The trickery, the deception in our girls as their playing, improvising on and off the ball. So kudos to them for having fun playing the game."

With three minutes left Kate Shroyer made it 4-0 taking advantage of a miscommunication between the West Chicago defense and goalkeeper.

The Wildcats had just one scoring chance in the first half, an outside of the foot effort from Kayla Kirkwood heading for the top corner that hit the crossbar.

The second half scoring got started by Margaret Tamm who after being denied by the crossbar from distance, hit another 20-yard shot that went over the goalkeeper's head to make it 5-0.

McArthur got her third with 15 minutes left with a pure poacher's goal, slotting in a deflected shot in the 6-yard box.

"My teammates just played great balls to me and I was just able to put them in the back of the net," said McArthur, who moved from midfield to striker this season. "It felt great, good start to the season and (hopefully) many more to come."

Emma Dannhausen-Brun made it 7-0 in the final minutes for the Red Devils.