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Girls lacrosse: Naperville North cools off Neuqua Valley

When Lauren Platou woke up Monday morning, the snow and cold cast some doubt on whether her Naperville North girls lacrosse team was going to play its game against Neuqua Valley that evening.

But the weather improved, the game got under way as scheduled, and Platou left no doubt that the Huskies meant business in their first DuPage Valley Conference tilt of the season.

Platou, a senior midfielder and captain, scored 5 goals as Naperville North beat Neuqua Valley 11-8, dealing the Wildcats their first loss of the season.

"Obviously, this game was a huge one for us, our first conference matchup," Platou said. "Every time we scored a goal, we just wanted to make sure we were playing hard the whole game through, so that was pretty much our game plan. Just keep playing hard. Don't give up."

Sure, it was pretty chilly postgame, but you know what? That didn't bother Naperville North coach Jessica Hogan one bit.

"I think the weather is perfect," Hogan said with a laugh after her team improved to 2-3 overall and 1-0 in league. "(Neuqua Valley) wanted to play, we wanted to play, so we're glad we got it in. It ended up being a beautiful night."

Platou had already scored twice when she drove down the center past a defender at 5:21 of the first half and deposited a shot top shelf into the net.

It was a pretty shot, but not as pretty as her encore 11 seconds later.

Platou snatched the ball out of the air on the draw, passed to sophomore Isabella Taylor, who stationed herself right of the Neuqua Valley net - then passed the ball back to Platou coming down center, who placed it in almost the same spot as her previous goal.

Sure, Platou had a stellar evening, but the key to culling scoring opportunities in lacrosse is the draw, which was handled with aplomb by junior Audrey Johnson, Her stick work in the center helped the Huskies corral 12 draw controls Monday, which they parlayed into leads of 5-2 and 9-5.

"I don't usually get it to myself," Johnson said. "I usually try and get it to my teammates, because I put a lot of trust in them that they can get it and execute it how I want to."

Neuqua Valley cut its deficit to 6-5 with 23:59 in the second half on a goal from junior midfielder Christine Corbin, one of the two she scored.

But Naperville North responded by scoring four unanswered goals, three by senior Cristin Culbertson - and the other by Platou - to win going away, though Wildcats junior midfielder Brenda Anderson made things interesting in the final 1:38 with a pair of penalty shot goals that set the final score. Anderson ended up scoring three times.

"We're just kind of taking away what we need to improve on," she said, "our groundballs, our midfield transition, not letting the missed opportunities get the best of us."

Ah, missed opportunities. That's enough to drive a coach crazy.

"We missed 50-50 groundballs, and we gave them a lot of second chance opportunities on our end on groundballs," said Neuqua Valley coach John Scanlon, whose club fell to 4-1 overall and 0-1 in league. "I think just cleaning that up and cleaning the passing up, it would have been a lot closer game.

"It's just consistency on offense and consistency overall."

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