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BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
ARGOS — Aryanna Allen scored off an Emma Dunlap assist in the second half, but the Argos girls soccer team lost to visiting Plymouth 3-1 in its home opener at Eugene Snyder Field Thursday. Aubrey Vervynckt scored twice, including once on a bicycle kick, in the first half to give Plymouth a 2-0 halftime lead. Plymouth scored on an Argos own goal in the 52nd minute to increase the lead to 3-0.
Allen’s goal in the 58th minute averted the shutout for the Class 1A, No. 7 Lady Dragons (1-1). “Terrible,” Argos coach Joe Stone said of his team’s performance. “We did not play well. I’m not going to make excuses. Plymouth played Plymouth soccer. They were successful at it. It’s good soccer. But maybe the Tuesday game at Kankakee Valley wore us out too much, and we just didn’t have any energy that first half. Second half, I thought we played a lot better. Very happy with our offensive output. In the first half, we were just going through the motions, and I was very upset with that.” Stone has always stated that defense is the foundation of his teams, which have won back-to-back sectional titles. And they held Kankakee Valley to three shots on goal in a 2-0 win in their season opener Tuesday. “Is Plymouth better than Kankakee Valley? I don’t know,” Stone wondered. “I think they’re good, but are they as good as Kankakee Valley was? I don’t think so. That’s my opinion though. It’s not cutting Plymouth down though. This is also Plymouth’s first game.
“But we just didn’t play up to par. I don’t know. Plymouth is in our head a little bit. They’ve beat us the last three years in a row now. It’s tough. We’re trying to shake it.”
The season thus far has featured tightly regulated protocols to ward off the corona virus. High school sports teams have to be vigilant. “I think the virus has taken a lot of the girls mentally,” Stone said. “They’re struggling. It’s a good thing. They’re fighting it. They’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing — social distancing as much as they can when I catch them. But I think it’s always a constant worry on our minds. It’s like something is distracting them every practice. … It’s a pain. But we’ve got to do it. If we want to play, we’ve got to do it, so we’ll do it.”
It was a solid game by both teams. Argos has some young players who shined. Some players appeared to struggle with the sub patterns by the Argos coach. Plymouth’s speed on the back half seemed to give Argos lots of trouble to get anything going offensively and surprisingly no adjustments were made to free up Allen or their promising young talent. The Plymouth game always serves as a good indicator and reflection game for Argos on adjustments as they do play a challenging schedule that readies them for the lower class playoffs. Plymouth is still developing depth and will face their first test Tuesday against conference rival Warsaw. Plymouth does return four of the top five scorers from two se…