Girls soccer: Triad grounds Burlington Central in 2A semifinal

For only the third time this season, Burlington Central's offense just couldn't take flight.

Unfortunately for the Rockets, that meant their third defeat forces them to play for third place in the IHSA Class 2A state finals.

Downstate Triad made an early strike stand up for a 1-0 victory in Friday's second semifinal of Central's first appearance in the girls soccer state finals.

The Rockets (24-3-2) face Lemont in Saturday's 11 a.m. consolation match at Beneditti-Wherli Stadium on the campus of North Central College in Naperville.

Lemont (20-2-4) came up short 1-0 based on Wheaton Academy's 7-6 sudden-victory advantage from the 12th attempt in the third shootout series. The Warriors (21-5), last year's Class 1A champion, now face Triad (21-6) in the 1 p.m. championship.

Central was unable to score for the first time in 14 matches since an April 21 loss to Barrington, which made the Class 3A state finals. Twelve games prior to that, the Rockets lost their season opener 2-0 to Naperville Central, the first of seven 3A opponents.

With only 5:07 gone, the ball basically popped out to the left wing where Triad's Erynn Little decided to take a chance from 23 yards and it sailed into the back of the net for a quick 1-0 lead.

"There were four defenders in front of me sort of in a square and the goalie was somewhat in the middle and I saw an opening and took it," Little said of only her third goal of the year. "Never really thought about it becoming a game-winning goal. I was just very happy to finish."

"That was just a great shot," Triad coach Matt Bettlach insisted. "She put it in the corner. My assistant said scoring that early was both good and bad. On the one hand we had the lead, on the other a lot of game to be played. I really credit Morgan (Bohnenstiehl) for keeping the defense organized and not giving them much, plus (goalie) Mercedes (King) was there to clean things up."

Despite the early deficit, Central never panicked. However, the Rockets also lacked a finishing touch or luck.

"We had some nerves at the beginning, but overall we just didn't play our game," BC's Megan Majewski admitted. "I thought if we scored one, we'd even get a second."

That was the kind of confidence that powered the Rockets to two goals in the last three minutes of a 2-1 sectional title win over nemesis Sycamore.

"We just didn't finish," Central's Jordan King added. "The whole game, up until the last few seconds, I believed we were in it."

Although Triad finished with a 9-8 edge in overall attempts, the actual shots on goal were in Central's favor 4-2. Of course, the number that mattered the most was the one on the scoreboard in favor of the Knights.

"We just didn't quite get it moving our way, we needed to be more dynamic in our attack," Rockets' coach Jess Arneson said. "For some reason we didn't fight as hard today, hopefully that means we'll do all the more tomorrow.

Triad's sweeper-based defense was a little unusual, Arneson admitted, but still believed the teams were evenly matched.

"We did that in order to take away their diagonal runs," Bettlach noted.

Bottom line: The Knights picked up their 20th shutout, their fifth straight in the postseason, and a third consecutive 1-0 victory.