Central Bucks East fell to Canon McMillan 2-1 in a PIAA Class AAA semifinal game on Tuesday night in Chambersburg.
The Central Bucks East Freight Train Runs out of Track
By Ben Winderman for SuburbanOneSports.com
Photos provided by Jerry Hankins.
CHAMBERSBURG – This season was an epic adventure for Paul Eisold’s Patriots, and with time becoming a factor Tuesday night and CB East trailing District 7’s Canon-McMillan by two goals, the Patriots’ chief striker/stoker Emma Loving shoveled the last of her squad’s coal reservoir into the furnace, and the East locomotive was somehow gaining velocity.
Down 2-0 with 20 minutes to play and their semifinal rival pressuring for the third, Emma Loving’s relentless movement connected with teammate Kristen Murphy’s aggressive play, and suddenly Loving found space behind the formidable C-M backline. One v. one with Duquesne-bound goalkeeper Kyra Murphy, East’s consistently fluid attacker momentarily couldn’t pull the trigger; but with tremendous control at high pace, the junior forward paused, recalibrated, and struck a ball hard at the target. The keeper slid to her left, cut the angle slightly, and blocked the shot; however the rebound gave Loving another chance. With technical precision that her game possesses but sometimes gets overlooked, East’s leading scorer made sure that their fans in the station had one last chance horn to blow.
Loving’s goal in the 70th minute cut Canon McMillan’s lead in half, 2-1, and an unlikely rally seemed within reason. East kept the pressure on, and with five minutes to play, junior Jillian Pawelski won a distant head ball that sailed just over the C-M bar. It would be East’s last puff of steam in their 2014 travels, as their manifest destiny to go west reached the end of their line.
On the sideline with sparkles in their eyes were East keeper Katie Dolf and teammates Kristen Murphy and Danielle DeMichael. They did the interview arm-in-arm, and for the Patriots, it was a game without many highlights that was one. No top 10’s of the day but packed nevertheless with persistently tough play and team defending.
Emily Horn consistently disrupted the advances of McMillan’s attack down the right side and with the fortitude of a soldier on this Veterans Day battled for every ball in her bunker. Alongside Horn, backs Paige Weiss and Abby Brown stifled patrols from C-M’s Sabrina Bryan and Aideen O’Donaghue, and from the left, Hannah Zach drove services into dangerous areas that Kristen Murphy and Danielle DeMichael ran down. Both East Flanks covered continental mileage and just for that deserve credit, but both also understood when to stay wide in order to open seams for Loving’s speed and also when to weave behind #8 centrally, preventing or delaying their opponent’s center backs from necessary recovery runs. To a certain extent, tonight, however, East ran into a different foe.
In the 27th minute of play, Paige Weiss played a gargantuan ball forward, to Loving but it was tackled well by C-M’s sweeper-back, senior Lauren Hess. Hess then pounded her own Godzillian strike up field, which her teammate Aideen Donaghue touched brilliantly to a streaking sophomore Sabrina Bryan. Bryan accelerated with the dribble and deposited a left footed finish far post. It was a play worthy of her #10, and as the crowd would come understand, Bryan, O’Donaghue, Hess, Kyra Murphy, and midfielder Allison Thomas are worthy of the title game.
Central Bucks East’s players don’t need another game to celebrate their profound success. State semifinals for this East squad is remarkable, and although Coach Eisold attempted to argue that this loss was partially due to his lack of preparation, this coach deserves congratulations on a train well engineered.
“We exceeded every expectation,” explained Kristen Murphy. “We really had a goal of making it to districts and then we began to gel, and we just didn’t want the season to end.”
As the senior captain who wears the #2 gathered her emotions, her teammate Danielle DeMichael, who wears the #3, continued with a sense of unified thought.
“We knew we had big shoes to fill from last year – all the amazing players, and we only had three starters returning,” DeMichael nodded. “But the positive attitudes of everyone and, like Kristen said, the gelling of everyone, and our team cohesiveness that brought us to where we are.”
DeMichael, who brought elements of experience, know-how, and brute force to this team was not one of those returners as she struggled with a severe injury her junior year, but this team had her stamp of toughness, and at practice, younger players who could hang began to emerge.
“Our two freshmen,” Murphy smiled. “Who would have believed that for a rebuilding year, that two freshmen (Delaney Kennedy and Kate Schlotter) would step up like that? That was huge!”
“And they both scored amazing goals,” DeMichael agreed, “when we needed them the most!”
Tonight East got some amazing saves from GK Katie Dolf, most impressively as C-M midfielder Cheyenne Trest broke in early in the second and Dolf tipped her rising shot over the cross-bar. However, two corner kicks ensued and on the second Aideen O’Donahue headed the eventual game-winner home.
Speaking of home, the unified/exhausted Patriots climbed aboard their ride home and disappeared behind tinted glass. What the trip east brought was more stories, more tears, more laughter, a little rest, and some reflection. For coach Eisold, the compliments for East’s opponent and the achievements of his own squad merged into an authentic reservoir of respect that he, his family, his coaching staff, and his steely players develop for this game. And whether it’s a yellow school bus or a Hagey coach, this team travels all directions in style.
The Patriots closed out a successful season with a 19-4-2 record.
Central Bucks East 0-1 1
Canon McMillan 1-1 2
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