Upper Moreland was winning 3-1 after the first quarter and this score held until half. One minute into the game, Olivia Meakim passed to Ava Bailey who accurately lifted her shot into the cage. Then during a corner, Kyleigh Convey made a pass to Bailey who shot and Maggie Morrow tipped it in for the first of her 3 goals. These forwards along with mids Ella Gould, Melissa Torpey and Cambrie Richmond were really playing well in the circle to create scoring opportunities. For the 3rd goal, Meakim passed to Morrow and she used a pull right dodge to score with 8 seconds left in the first quarter.
In the 2nd quarter, the game became more even. I didn’t feel like we were playing poorly, but Cheltenham’s #14 Farrell became more dominant. He’s a very fast kid who has a long arm span to make wide dodges, with a very hard drive which was often called for danger. He got a few breakaways and was able to set up a score by Gardner. Then Cheltenham was able to force a corner and Farrell scored with an assist from Chaney. The game also became more physical in the 2nd half with Cheltenham given 3 cards, including a yellow for 5 minutes. Izzy Duncan and Melissa Torpey were fearless defensively handling Cheltenham’s attackers.
The score was still tied in the 4th quarter. Cambrie Richmond was amazing in the midfield, using her dynamic stickwork to dribble through Cheltenham’s defense and create shooting opportunities. We were really pummeling their goalie with shots in the 4th quarter but nothing was going in – several wide shots. Our inserter, Kelly Bates got injured from a collision with Farrell, so we were off on our corners, missing post opportunities several times.
Finally, with 2:23 left in the game, Richmond had possession in the circle again and took a shot which Morrow then pushed in to complete her hat trick.
Our goalies Tierney Hogan and Ash Conrad only had 2 saves each, but did what they needed for us to win the game 4-3.