Girls soccer: Waubonsie Valley’s season ends in regional semifinals

It did not take Oswego East coach Juan Leal long to realize he had a unique talent in Anna Herrmann.

Leal met the incoming freshman at summer camp last year. Herrmann made a quick impression.

“I talked to my assistant and I said this girl is going to be something special,” Leal said. “Sure enough, preseason we saw her in training, she goes 100% all the time. As she got comfortable with the varsity pace she started to establish herself.”

Herrmann has not stopped since. And never seems to stop on the field.

She recorded a hat trick with three goals Wednesday, giving her 28 goals on the season. Herrmann assisted a fourth goal in the ninth-seeded Wolves’ 4-1 win over sixth-seeded Waubonsie Valley in the Class 3A Oswego East regional semifinal.

It was not Herrmann’s first hat trick of the season, but her smashing playoff debut and first in a postseason sent Oswego East (12-9) into Friday’s regional final against Benet.

“I’m so grateful. I couldn’t do it without my teammates,” Herrmann said. “I just really wanted to win and I wanted my teammates to keep playing, especially the seniors.”

Herrmann’s three goals, two in the game’s final five minutes, put her two shy of Anya Gulbrandsen’s single-season program record of 30.

Her biggest moment Wednesday, though, didn’t involve Herrmann finishing.

With the game tied 1-1 in the final minute of the first half, she took a throw-in near the left sideline. Herrmann took a couple dribbles and sent a cross into the box.

As the Waubonsie Valley keeper dove to her knees for the ball, Oswego East junior Olivia Hamilton found an opening.

“I realized that she was trying to dive for the ball, I took a step out and I swung it around with my left and it went in,” Hamilton said. “After we scored I feel like it gives us a certain drive to get more goals. It gets us that motivation.”

The score with 24 seconds left gave Oswego East a 2-1 lead, and that energy carried over into the second half.

Waubonsie’s McKinley Ladd, who scored her team’s lone goal, acknowledged that it was a huge momentum swing that her team never recovered from.

The Warriors (12-7-1) had previously banged two successive point-blank shots off the post from a free kick with eight minutes left in the half.

“It was a tough one,” Ladd said. “Coming out down 2-1, it put us down, heads were down. We struggled to keep our heads up and get going. That kind of cost us.”

Herrmann got Oswego East going early. She got behind the Waubonsie defense, side-stepped the keeper and drilled a shot inside the far left post.

“I think it definitely boosted our energy and our confidence,” Herrmann said. “It gave us motivation to keep going and to keep pressing.”

Herrmann kept pressing throughout the second that the Wolves controlled possession.

She had two good attempts sail over the goal, and with 14 minutes left beat three defenders and shot it off the right post.

Not to be denied, Herrmann scored twice in 63 seconds’ time in the game’s last five minutes.

“The girl has incredible accuracy on her shots, she has incredible power — she just has a drive to her," Leal said. “She is motivated. She plays hard every single second she gets on the pitch. The girls look to her. She’s a freshman, but I think they see her as a role model. We knew Waubonsie would be tough. Once she got going we rode that wave.”