The Hatboro-Horsham field hockey team advanced to Saturday’s Elite Eight in the PIAA Class AAA State Tournament while Central Bucks South saw its season end. To view photos of the CB South/Penn Manor game, please visit the Photo Gallery.
1-4 HATBORO-HORSHAM 2, 12-1 CARDINAL O’HARA 0
It didn’t matter to Emily Braunewell or her teammates that Cardinal O’Hara, the District 12 champion, had scored 115 goals this season. It didn’t matter that the Lady Hatters were considered by some to be the underdog on Tuesday. And in their first state playoff appearance since 2006, the Lady Hatters knew that now was the time to take advantage of the opportunity in front of them.
Led by Braunewell and her eight-save performance, Hatboro-Horsham shut out O’Hara, 2-0, in a PIAA Class AAA first round playoff at Germantown High’s Benjamin L. Johnston Memorial Stadium, sending the Lady Hatters to the next round for a meeting with District One champion, West Chester Henderson.
“What a great game,” coach Laura Swezey said. “The speed of the game was so high paced, and we moved the ball well.”
While Braunewell stopped everything that came her way and the defense played one of its best games of the year, sophomore Kelsy Hopkins and senior Carlie Baldus tallied goals to lift the Lady Hatters (15-7-1) to the two-goal victory.
“We’re definitely in it to win it. We have a lot of talent on this team and these girls are really peaking at the right time,” coach Swezey said. “Emily just had an awesome game and our defense of Jane Henry, Brenna Reilly, Keeley Henry and Jenna Cutilli was stellar.
“Jamie DiQuatro contained one of their top players, and Casey Swezey created offensive opportunities with transitioning the ball in the midfield. It was a total team effort.”
Both of the Lady Hatters’ goals were scored in the first half and both were assisted by junior Casey Swezey. The first goal, which came at the 23:24 mark, came when Kelsey Hopkins tipped in a Swezey backhand chip shot. With less than 12 minutes to play in the half, Baldus took a hard shot from the top of the circle and watched as the ball hit off the O’Hara goalie and into the cage for a 2-0 Hatboro-Horsham lead.
“We want this more than anything,” Braunewell said. “We were so excited on the bus to come out here and take the win, and we’re really excited to move forward.”
Braunewell was outstanding on Tuesday, stopping four shots in each half while keeping O’Hara – a team that had averaged nearly five-and-a-half goals per game this season – completely off the scoreboard. In addition to eight saves.
“(Getting the lead) took so much pressure off,” Braunewell said. “Once we get the lead, it’s easy for us to just relax and just focus on keeping them out of the net and keeping possession of the ball rather than thinking that we have to score. We just came in making sure we had everybody marked and we were focusing a lot on defense, while also making sure we got offensive chances as well.”
In the end, the Lady Hatters (15-7-1) finished with seven corners to six for O’Hara (16-6). The Lions had only been shut out one previous time this season before Tuesday’s defeat.
Hatboro-Horsham will now prepare for Saturday’s contest with WC Henderson, which will be played at a time and location that is yet to be determined.
“We’re just really excited,” Braunewell said. “It’s a little exciting and a little nerve-wrecking, but we’re just excited and I think we’re ready. We’re not going to take them lightly.”
Hatboro-Horsham 2-0 2
Cardinal O’Hara 0-0 0
3-3 PENN MANOR 2, 1-2 CENTRAL BUCKS SOUTH 1
It wasn’t supposed to end this way.
Not in an opening round state playoff game that saw their team play shorthanded for a major part of the second half. Not in a game between two state powers that featured limited scoring opportunities for both teams for 45 minutes and then inexplicably turned into something quite different in the final 15.
That, however, is exactly what happened to Central Bucks South in Tuesday’s PIAA Class AAA opening round game against the defending state runner-up Comets at Wissahickon High School.
The Titans saw a postseason of high expectations come to a heartbreaking end when – with 61 seconds remaining in regulation – Penn Manor’s Rachel Suter scored on a brilliant individual effort, somehow turning a diving reverse chip from the top of the circle into a goal.
Until Suter’s heroic effort, it looked as though the Titans, against all odds, might survive a turn of second-half events that saw their team on the receiving end of a pair of green cards and two yellow cards, which translated into playing shorthanded for 14 minutes.
There was no mistaking the impact those cards had on the game.
In a 12-minute span that began at the 13:41 mark of the second half, the Comets were awarded 13 consecutive corners. They never really mounted any serious threats, thanks to the standout efforts of South’s defensive corner unit of Corrine Kenney, Mackenzie Harding, Megan Hamilton and Jessica Schmidt, but the complexion of the game had suddenly changed completely.
“How tough were my kids, killing those corners all the way down to the last minute,” South co-coach Jeff Harding said. “They fought hard. I thought we had a good game plan.
“I thought the kids played well, but the fact that we had to kill 10 or 12 minutes or whatever it was shorthanded for not even legitimate calls – it’s a sin.”
Tuesday’s game was going along as most would have expected until the cards began mounting, and even when the Titans were back at full strength for the final six minutes, things were never the same.
“Megan Hamilton asked what a corner was for, and she gave her a yellow card,” Harding said. “She’s my captain, and my captain can speak on behalf of my team just to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Matt (Soto) is a great guy, Penn Manor is a great team. I just didn’t want it to end this way.
“In a PIAA game, everyone should know that is an unfortunate situation that you had an umpire like that. Good umpires are the ones you don’t know are there. I think the umpire on the opposite side did a really good job. It was the one that was stuck on our side.”
The officials at Tuesday’s game made their presence felt from the outset, beginning with an official’s timeout for a conference after Penn Manor’s first corner and an apparent disagreement about whether a South defender had hit the ball over the end line intentionally. The call went against South, and the Comets were awarded another corner. They capitalized, going on top 1-0 when Suter’s corner shot deflected into the cage.
The Comets took that 1-0 lead into halftime, but the Titans rallied to knot the score when – on their second corner of the second half – Mackenzie Harding hit a rocket across goal that Kenney redirected into the cage, knotting the score at the 19:46 mark.
It looked like the ending would be a classic battle, but it turned into something else entirely, and South saw its season end while Penn Manor will move on.
Penn Manor coach Matt Soto sympathized with South’s fate.
“That’s really hard,” he said. “We’ve been in a reverse situation, having a couple of cards against us for being a little too physical.
“It’s kind of like a snowball, and I was really proud of our players for not letting it affect us. Our resolve was to continue to play hard, and obviously, that was a defining factor.”
The Comets’ coach went on to tip his hat to the Titans.
“We knew how good South was coming in,” Soto said. “I didn’t make it known to my team, but our coaching staff knew this was going to be one of those games.
“We can’t (let down), but we can certainly know we did something special today. We beat a really, really good team.”
EXTRA SHOTS: Suter, the Comets’ corner striker, credited the Titans for making life tough on corners. “They had really fast fly, and she was hard to get around,” Suter said of Kenney. “She broke down really well.”…The Titans closed out their season with a 20-3 mark, 14-0 in the SOL with a seventh consecutive conference title to their credit.
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