The second time playing Springfield, Upper Moreland was looking to play more competitively and make less defensive mistakes. They answered the call and achieved their goal in a hard fought game.
Springfield has fantastic stickwork and accurate passing, so we were looking to slow down their game and play more consistent defensive in our half of the field. Springfield is also coached to draw a lot of corners and when they execute them, they pass a lot to move and confuse the defense. We had worked on this in practice to prepare and it paid off. Although the Spartans did score on two corners Cambrie Richmond, Eowyn Stainback, Julia Gallen, Kelly Bates and our goalies held strong throughout the corners. Izzy Duncan was also dominant on defense in the circle at center back and joined the others to make many tackles and force Springfield into difficult situations.
It was 2-0 at half, then halfway through the 3rd quarter, UM forced a corner. Torpey passed the ball across the goal and Ava Bailey swept it in for the goal to make it 2-1.
After that, Springfield made the most of their time in the circle scoring 2 more goals where UM could not find the net. Springfield puts everyone back in the circle when we are pressuring and it was tough to get through their defense.
The best thing to see tonight was how we really played as a team! This team’s hard work in practice is really starting to pay off in games. We communicated well, had great passing, and drew fouls. Our midis – Ella Gould and Melissa Torpey worked extremely well with our forwards, Ava Bailey, Maggie Morrow and Olivia Meakim. We got multiple breakaways and started pressuring in their circle. Kyleigh Convey also had a great game tonight, providing a spark for us playing in several positions - wherever we needed her.
Our goalies Tierney Hogan and Ash Conrad also did an amazing job! They work so hard in practice with our Assistant Coach Melanie Rowland. She threw everything at them this week to prepare for this Springfield game! We knew that they did a lot of lifts to goal, carried it on the endline and also had lots of small passing in the circle. So Rowland worked on this with our forwards challenging our goalies. Ash Conrad got the start today and made 8 saves, while Tierney Hogan came in for the 2nd and 4th quarter making 10 saves. Our goalies are just so consistent back there and our defense really relies on them.