Tess Triplett got the ball on the left side with a defender in good position. Or, maybe more accurately, defenders.

But all succumbed to a handful of sensational dribbling moves by the Eagan sophomore to provide some breathing room early in the second half Tuesday night.

Getting the ball about 25 yards out on the left side, Triplett beat a defender to the left, stopped, cut back to avoid another, avoided a sliding tackle, split a couple of defenders, beat one more and lasered home a shot for a 2-0 lead.

“Once I beat that first defender I was going to try and pass it in, but then I saw the angle and thought, ‘Oh, I can take this in,’ and I just shot it. I didn’t really think,” she said. “It felt so good.”

“An absolute banger,” said Josie Seehafer, who scored Eagan’s first goal in the Wildcats’ 3-1 win over Lakeville North in a state girls soccer Class 3A quarterfinal at Farmington High School. Ava Ligtenberg had a goal and two assists.

The fourth-seeded Wildcats (16-3-1) next get top-ranked Wayzata or unseeded St. Michael-Albertville at 8 a.m. Oct. 29 inside U.S. Bank Stadium. The Trojans and Knights played later Tuesday.

In the tournament for the second straight season, the South Suburban Conference champions seek the school’s first title since winning three between 2014-17.

Eagan lost in a rainy shootout to Andover in a 2023 quarterfinal. “We had a really good group of girls, so this one is for them as well,” Seehafer said.

Savanna Varbanov scored on a rebound midway through the second half for Lakeville North (13-3-3), which fell in the quarterfinals for the second straight season.

Entering the game, the Panthers had blanked four straight opponents and eight of its last nine.

Midway through the first half, a pretty pass from Ligtenberg made sure that streak would not continue.

Chasing down a long ball by Triplett, Ligtenberg controlled into the Lakeville North box. Her left-footed pass found Seehafer in front for a redirect into the lower right corner.

“It definitely helped set the tone. We knew we had to start fast,” said Seehafer, whose 12 goals are second to Ligtenberg’s team-leading 18.

Lakeville North had a devastating miss just under 10 minutes later, when a penalty kick went wide, a miss the Panthers could not afford against a stout defense.

The Wildcats’ defense was stout, including Isabella Faul and Kate Krahn, who shadowed Varbanov and the Panthers’ leading scorer, Lexie Bennett.

“We just had to make sure every single time they had the ball we were doubling,” said Eagan coach Qassim Ilmi. “It was almost like a corner and a safety in football where you have somebody there, but then you have somebody to keep an eye on in case they get beat. We did our job.”