On a day that saw three of the tournament’s top four seeds go home for the season, three SOL teams advanced to Friday’s quarterfinal. To view action shots of the CB East/Radnor and North Penn/CB South games, visit the Photo Gallery by clicking on the following link: http://photos.suburbanonesports.com/
Expect the unexpected.
That could well be the theme for this year’s District One AAA Tournament. Two days after Souderton, Upper Dublin, William Tennent and PW were the victims of upsets, the district’s top three seeds were sent packing in Wednesday’s second round.
Two of those top seeds – Central Bucks South and Council Rock North – were from the SOL. The Titans were victimized by a North Penn squad intent on taking revenge while the Indians were defeated in double overtime by Perk Valley. An undefeated West Chester Henderson squad, the tournament’s second seed, was soundly defeated by18th-seeded Spring-Ford 5-1.
Fourth-seeded Wissahickon was the only top seed to survive Wednesday’s action as the Trojans eked out a 2-1 win over Methacton. Central Bucks East also kept its fairy tale postseason alive with a thrilling overtime victory over Radnor.
#16 NORTH PENN 3, #1 CENTRAL BUCKS SOUTH 1
Eight minutes.
That’s really all the time the North Penn Maidens needed to bring an end to any post-season aspirations the top-seeded Titans may have had. The Maidens stunned the Titans with a pair of goals just 32 seconds apart less than three minutes into the game, but it was Michelle Holweger’s goal at the 21:59 mark to put the Maidens on top 3-0 that may have sounded the death knell for the Titans’ season.
“I think they sort of came into (the game) thinking they were going to win, and we came into it thinking they were going to feel that way,” Maiden goalie Shannon Keen said.
Maiden co-coach Carrie Jankowski echoed a similar sentiment.
“I feel like they weren’t prepared for how hard we were going to come out,” she said. “I honestly thought that CB South played really well for the rest of the game, but my team was ready for it, and they rose to the challenge.”
Titan co-coach Jeff Harding acknowledged that his team couldn’t match the Maidens’ fire early in the game.
“I think we definitely came out flat,” he said. “We were on our heels, and we got ourselves into a hole.
“I had all the confidence in the world they were going to work themselves out, and as the game started to evolve, they were starting to do that, but you have to play 60 minutes.”
Coming into Wednesday’s Continental Conference showdown, the Maidens had the not-so-little matter of revenge serving as motivation. The Titans had not only defeated the Maidens twice during the regular season but had sent the Maidens home for the season with a win in a district elimination game last season.
“We actually had Buzz come back, and she was telling us this year we had to get redemption,” Keen said of former teammate Elizabeth Fedele. “It always comes down to (CB South). Of course, during the season, we kind of had a mental brick wall – ‘CB South, uh oh,’ but I think we finally overcame that. The whole day today every time we saw each other we pumped each other up. We wanted to send them home. It was our turn.”
The Maidens’ three-goal tear began with a textbook play on the first corner of the game when Carly Pickford – who was on the left post – deflected a drive on goal by Holweger into the cage.
The Maidens had barely finished celebrating their early goal when Juliamae Marger - using a Pickford assist - added another.
“We have been having trouble scoring lately, so we knew that was one of the biggest things.,” Pickford said of scoring early. “I think a big key to this game was – we knew how hard we had to play.
“We have wanted so long to get revenge. They ended our season last year. We have had games against them this season where we couldn’t finish and we couldn’t beat them. This proved how hard we could really work.”
A two-goal lead was anything but secure against a Titan squad that earlier this season rallied from a 2-0 deficit to defeat the Maidens, but when Holweger (Marger/Emilie Ikeda assists) scored at the 21:59 mark, the Maidens had a 3-0 lead, and suddenly, the road back got a whole lot tougher for the Titans..
“You can’t give a team a 3-0 lead in the playoffs, not at any time,” Harding said. “As an athlete, you have to come prepared.
“We felt as a coaching staff they were prepared for every situation, but to us, it just seemed like we weren’t there for the first five minutes, and we were caught totally off guard.”
Trailing 3-0, the Titans came to life. They drew five first-half corners, and on the first, a rocket by Kayla Kenney came within inches of finding the cage but ricocheted harmlessly off the right post.
The Titans got on the scoreboard at the 12:54 mark when Lexi Thompson turned a pass from teammate Corinne Kenney into a goal.
In the second half, the Titans drew eight more corners, but the Maidens – behind the stellar eight-save effort of Keen and a relentless defense – refused to bend. Midway through the half, Keen turned away a laser shot on a corner by Kenney. Moments later, Keen made a dazzling pad save of another Kenney corner shot, and Holweger stopped the Titans’ follow shot on the goal line.
“Oh my gosh, Michelle is always great on the line,” Keen said. “I think it has to do with her softball hand-eye coordination, but she saved my butt before. I’m really happy to have her.”
“I just had to keep my composure,” Holweger said. “The South girl shot it, and I just had my stick down and got it.”
The Titans were far from finished. In the final five minutes of the game, they drew five corners, but the Maidens’ corner unit of Holweger (post), Marger (flier), Ikeda and Laura DeLongis along with Keen were impossible to beat.
“That felt like the longest five minutes of my life,” Holweger said. “The key was just keeping it away from their good shooters and marking man to man.”
“Credit the defensive unit for the entire game,” Jankowski said. “And the defensive corner unit for facing all those corners.
“When you have a fly (Marger) that fast, you start changing your ideology and what you’re going to do with (your corners).”
For her part, Keen insists she enjoys corners.
“It was crazy,” the Maidens’ senior goalie said. “I honestly love corners because it’s a straight shot, and that’s my job, but I was shaking. I had the adrenaline going. It was great.
“I’m really confident in my team, so I wasn’t too nervous, but it got crazy and hectic. That was the slowest five minutes of my life.”
In an ending that just might have summed up the game for the Titans, a corner shot by Kenney ricocheted off the post yet again as time was about to expire. The Titans had come close but not close enough.
CB South – champion of the Continental Conference - closed out the season with a 15-2-2 record.
“For one second, I can’t be upset,” Harding said. “We just said to them – when we came into this co-coaching situation, we felt like, ‘Hey, we have a young group. We lost a lot. Let’s just try and make them better hockey players.’
“They overachieved, they came together as a group, and the result was a league championship, which is something they should be very proud of in a very competitive league. It’s something to build on for next year. We have a lot of young players coming back.”
The Maidens will face a familiar opponent in Friday’s quarterfinal when they will host conference foe Central Bucks East in a battle of the tournament’s 16th and 24th seeds.
#24 CENTRAL BUCKS EAST 2, #25 RADNOR 1
Marissa Glatt should be getting used to the feeling of being mobbed by ecstatic teammates.
Two days after scoring the game-winning goal to give the Patriots a 4-3 win over Upper Dublin in Monday’s opening round game, the East junior was back at it again, this time beating a pair of defenders and the goalie on a classic breakaway to score the game winner at the 13:52 mark of the first overtime.
“You just have to try to beat the defender and get a quick shot off,” Glatt explained matter-of-factly when asked about her game-winning shot.
Glatt certainly made it look oh-so-easy, dodging the first defender in her path and then beating the goalie and defender awaiting her in the circle for perhaps her biggest goal of a magical postseason.
“We wanted to continue,” Glatt said. “Everyone wants it.”
The Patriots would have been forgiven if they were frustrated for the better part of Wednesday’s game against a Radnor squad that – despite being outshot and out-cornered – had upset eighth-seeded Souderton in Monday’s opening round.
It looked as though it might be the same story again as the Patriots, despite dominating play in the first half, trailed 1-0 at halftime.
“We were outplaying them, but their goalie was really good,” Glatt said.
East coach Marie Meehan – who had talked to Souderton coach Mary Ann Harris – knew what to expect when her team faced a defensive-minded Radnor squad.
“They pack the goal,” she said. “Their goalie was in front of three defenders, and every time we shot it hit somebody.
“We hit the post three times ourselves. Basically at halftime we told our girls, ‘What is luck?’ They named a lot of different things. I said, ‘Luck is a product of hard work, and right now we’re being a little unlucky, but our hard work is not going to stop.’”
The Patriots – who saw a penalty stroke go off the post in the first half – finally saw things go their way, thanks to some nifty teamwork by Emily Vasey and Glatt.
Vasey carried the ball downfield and sent a perfect lead pass to Glatt, who never broke stride and one-timed it into the cage from the top of the circle to knot the score at the 21:05 mark of the second half.
“We had a nice give-and-go, and I saw it was open, so I took a shot at the top of the circle,” Glatt said.
Neither team scored the rest of the way, but the Patriots needed just 68 seconds to bring an end to the game in OT as Glatt once again delivered the game’s big blow.
The Patriots – despite losing 10 seniors, which included five veteran defenders from last year’s district semifinal squad – find themselves back in the quarterfinals.
“It took this team – even though they had experience – a little while to gel this season,” Meehan said. “Losing one-goal games all season, they could have packed it up, but they kept wanting to persevere.
“Today they kept persevering. We really focus on being a team and being together. This is a group of kids that really tries to work together, and I think that’s a key.”
The Patriots will travel to North Penn on Friday for a quarterfinal matchup that will send one of the Continental Conference rivals into the district semifinals.
#4 WISSAHICKON 2, #20 METHACTON 1
It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t always pretty, but the Trojans escaped with the all-important win on Wednesday.
“We were not mentally ready,” coach Lauren Luft said. “We hadn’t played since last Monday, and the week before that we had four games in one week. We were flat.”
Lauren Becker, who scored both of her team’s goals, put the Trojans on the scoreboard only to watch the Warriors rally to knot the score. That 1-1 tie held up until midway through the second half when Becker hit pay dirt on a penalty corner, firing a powerful shot that ricocheted off the goalie into the cage.
“I saw Methacton play in the Tennent game, and they looked pretty good, so I knew they were going to give us tough competition,” Luft said. “They had good passes, and they were connecting.
“We had a lot of turnovers, and I think we were just mentally unprepared.”
Things won’t get any easier for the Trojans, who will face PAC-10 champion Owen J. Roberts in a quarterfinal game. Methacton is the first and only PAC-10 team that was eliminated from the district tournament. Three of the eight teams still standing are from the PAC-10.
#14 PERKIOMEN VALLEY 1, #3 COUNCIL ROCK NORTH 0 (2 OT)
The Indians did everything but put the ball in the cage in Wednesday’s second round game against the Vikings. They outshot the Vikings and controlled play in regulation, but they could not capitalize on their opportunities.
“We had a lot chances,” coach Heather Whalin said. “If we could have moved the cage a few inches to the left or right – it was like there was a force field.
“Hannah Plappert hit the post twice. In overtime, Gabby Tofig had a shot - I thought it was in from where I was standing. It was a beautiful cross from Courtney Titus to Gabby Tofig. It was literally like a force field was there.”
Despite the outcome, Whalin had high praise for her team’s effort.
“We told them yesterday at practice that we just wanted them to walk off the field knowing they gave it their all and that there wasn’t a ‘what if,’ and they really did,” the Indians’ coach said. “This was a great game to watch.
“If you just took the regulation, we definitely outplayed them and outshot them. In overtime, they definitely played better. We had a big opportunity on a corner in overtime – we had a perfect insert, but they came out early. Our next insert was not good, and that hurt us.”
The Vikings won it when Natalie Marsh scored on a corner with 1:52 remaining in the second overtime.
“It could have gone either way today,” Whalin said. “Double overtime with (1:52) left – I can handle that better than if we had gotten blown out.
“It was one of those games where you were like, ‘This is awesome. This is hockey, this is Pennsylvania hockey at its best.”
The Indians closed out their season with a 14-3-1 record and a National Conference crown to their credit.
“Oh my gosh, I couldn’t have scripted it any better,” Whalin said. “We were scored on twice in the league and gave up nine goals this entire season, and that’s playing Wissahickon, CB South and CB East.
“We had 13 shutouts after losing the goalie of the year last year who is starting in college. We outscored our opponents 68-9. They played a great game today, and even though they were hurting at the game, they could still hold their heads up and know they played a great game. They played their hearts out.”
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