Neshaminy and Central Bucks East earned wins in the PIAA Class AAA state quarterfinals Saturday and will square off in Tuesday’s state semifinal round. To view photos of the CB East/Boyertown game, please visit the Photo Gallery.
1-4 CENTRAL BUCKS EAST 1, 1-3 BOYERTOWN 1 (3-2 PKS)
The Patriots put their names in the record book on Saturday when they became the first Central Bucks East girls’ soccer team in program history to earn a spot in the state semifinals.
"Our coach keeps telling us over and over again that we're making history by going where we are," senior Abby Emmert said. "1992 was the last time a CB East team got to a certain checkpoint, and we beat that. He keeps telling us how lucky we are to get here.
"At the beginning of the season, we were looking at our goals. I am sure we all agreed we wanted to get to playoffs. I'm sure every team wants to get to states. I think we're all in a place right now where we're happy with where we are and taking it one game at a time."
East joins Neshaminy as one of just four Class AAA teams in the state still standing.
“The girls have worked so hard,” coach Paul Eisold said. “I know it’s cliché to say they’ve worked hard because every team works hard, but this team has something magical about it.
“They really, really just play because they enjoy it, and when you can play soccer or any sport and enjoy it and have a passion, it just makes it that much better.”
The Bears had the better of play in the first half but battled the Bears to a scoreless halftime tie.
“The wind was a factor,” Eisold said. “And we really struggled against the wind early on.”
After that, the Patriots seized control, and five minutes into the second half Kristen Murphy put East on the scoreboard.
“Nikki Panella passed it to Kristen down the side,” Eisold said. “Kristen Murphy had a couple of real good runs, and she wasn’t able to get a shot off, so we were telling her, ‘Get the shot off. Get the shot off.’
“It was a really good linking up play where the ball was played into Nikki, and she played it out to Kristen, and Kristen just went to goal and finished it.”
That 1-0 lead stood until Boyertown’s Megan Diehl found the net with 12 minutes remaining.
"It's really frustrating when you go through an entire game whe you feel like there should be a result at the end of the game and the you have to go into a double overtime and then penalty kick," East senior Abby Emmert. "By the end, everyone was really tired and relying on fate to help us out."
“We actually had the better of play in overtime,” Eisold said. “That’s not to say they didn’t have opportunities, but we had more chances.”
Despite those chances, the Patriots came up empty, and penalty kicks ensued. The Patriots missed wide on their first attempt, and the Bears missed high on theirs. Emmert scored, and the Bears answered with a goal to knot things up. The Patriots missed high on their third attempt, and the Bears hit the post. Nicole Panella connected for the Patriots, and once again the Bears tied it up. Shaun Kane found the net on East’s fifth and final PK of the initial round of five, and when the Bears came up empty, the historic win was in the books for the Patriots.
"There's a lot of pressure," Emmert said. "I'm sure there was a lot more pressure on the last girl because if that girl hadn't missed the last kick, we would have gone into another set of penalty kicks."
The key to penalty kicks?
"I think a lot of girls try to take it as hard as they can, and in doing that, they go above or to the side," Emmert said. "They is is to have one spot you go to every single time and practice that over and over.
"As soon as you try to change it up, that's when you make mistakes."
Eisold lauded the performances of numerous players in the win.
“Paige Marcinkowski, our goalkeeper, was absolutely outstanding,” the Patriots’ coach said. “Today we had to move Abby Emmert to a different position because of injuries. She plays outside right back, but today the team needed her at right midfield, and she was just resilient and played great in the midfield.
“I thought Shaun Kane, Annie Axenroth and Emma Loving worked extremely hard up top. Cailyn Hankins, a sophomore defender, didn’t see much time all year and just played outstanding today. Senior captain Holly Moyer also played well.”
Saturday’s win avenged a 1-0 loss to the Bears in the district third place game.
“We felt against Boyertown we just weren’t ready,” Eisold said. “We wanted the game back. That being said, we also knew it wasn’t a game of consequence because we already got in states, so it was just a matter of the seeding.
“We also knew that if we won our next round and they won their next round, we would meet up again (in the state quarterfinals). In our Continental Conference, we know how difficult it is to play teams twice. It’s extremely difficult, and we know that when you beat a team and you play that team again – and it doesn’t matter who it is, you have to be prepared. With that way of thinking and that way of playing in our league, we knew we had to be prepared today. We knew that this game was winnable. We knew if we were prepared and did the right things that we would get a good result.
The Patriots got a good result, and they have earned a spot in the state semifinals where they will meet conference and district champion Neshaminy on Tuesday night at William Tennent High School at 7 p.m.
Central Bucks East 0-1-0-0 1 (3-2 PKs)
Boyertown 0-1-0-0 1
1-1 NESHAMINY 2, 3-2 WILSON-WEST LAWN 0
By Joe Fite
Goals come in all kinds of varieties, and to be sure, Neshaminy senior Megan Schafer has found many and varied ways to put the ball into the back of the net. But little did she know that when it came time to notch a significant milestone goal that it would be on a penalty kick.
With 26 minutes, 52 seconds left in the first half, the senior two-time all-American blasted a shot past Wilson-West Lawn goalkeeper Jess Hetrick for the 100th goal of her stellar career and helped the District One champion Redskins beat the District Three runner-up Bulldogs, 2-0, in a PIAA Class AAA quarterfinal playoff game on Saturday at Whitehall.
With the win, Neshaminy (24-0) earned a spot in the state semifinals against Central Bucks East, the No. 4 seed from District One, on Tuesday at a time and place to be determined.
The Redskins, ranked 12th in the country by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America, held a 1-0 lead in the second minute of the game when Katie Suchodolski headed a cross from Jess Kelly past Hetrick. Later in the half, the referees called a handball in the box after a Fran Donato shot and awarded a penalty kick.
While penalty kicks have their own pressures, at least you don’t have players draped all over you as you try to put the ball into the net. And because she has 31 goals this season, Schafer has attracted double and triple teams to try and stop her.
This time, it was just Schafer and Hetrick.
“Going into the game, coach (Rachel Clemens) said that the other coach (Tim Fick) has known soccer for a while and that there’s going to be someone probably on me,” Schafer said. “So it’s probably going to be frustrating. It’s going to be hard. But she had faith in me that I could get it and it ended up being just like a foul shot in basketball. It’s just like a mind thing when it comes to pk’s.”
After some discussion regarding ball placement by the referees, Schafer found a spot to place the ball. She lowered her head and booted the ball into the left corner of the goal. Hetrick guessed wrong and dove to her left.
Schafer ran into the arms of her teammates and the ball was removed from the game, to be presented to her at the end of the contest.
“Just going in there, my mindset was striking right through the ball and that’s what I did,” Schafer said. “Just find a corner. That’s all I could do.”
Schafer and her teammates are looking forward to the East game when they hope to get past the spot where their season ended last year in a 2-0 loss to eventual state champion Cumberland Valley.
“It’s just one game at a time,” Schafer said.
The Redskins will face Central Bucks East at William Tennent High School on Tuesday at 7 p.m.
Wilson-West Lawn 0-0 0
Neshaminy 2-0 2
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