By Mike Prince
There is nothing that anyone can take away from the Abington seniors that have thrown on the maroon and white jerseys for the past four years.
Tuesday’s loss was not part of the script the Ghosts had hoped their district playoff run would follow, but it won’t take away what the team has already accomplished – including a fourth consecutive Suburban One American Conference championship and undefeated season, as well as a berth in the state tournament.
While a district championship was one of the goals that Abington coach Randy McNeill and his team set earlier in the year, the season is nowhere close to over, and the sun has not yet set on players such as Joey Jones, Matt Rambo, Anthony Hensley and the other seniors on the roster.
With a state playoff berth already secured, Abington’s senior class took nothing more than a detour on Tuesday evening, as the second-seeded Ghosts (19-2) were defeated by Conestoga 13-5 in a District One Class AAAA semifinal at Ridley High’s Phil Marion Field.
Though Abington has gotten down early in its first two playoff games, only to come back with a flurry of offense and handily take care of its opponents, the Ghosts got down too early, too fast on Tuesday.
The third-seeded Pioneers (19-2) jumped out with the first three goals in the game in the opening 10 minutes of play, as well as the first five goals by late in the half. Abington freshman Matt Rambo got one goal back for the Ghosts, but by the opening 19 seconds of the third quarter, Conestoga was back up by five goals, at 6-1.
“We got down really early and we thought we were going to come out of it just fine, but we weren’t hitting out shots and we missed on a lot of our chances,” Rambo said. “We really needed to put more pressure and pop our guys out and work the ball around for more offense, but we probably need to work on our defense even more.”
The one first half goal was the least amount of offense that Abington managed all season long. And in the second half, the deficit just kept increasing.
Senior Rich Rambo scored with 5:04 remaining in the third, but the Pioneers came back with three goals and held an 8-2 lead late in the quarter. Matt Rambo took a pass from Jones and beat Conestoga goalkeeper Pete Zonino with less than two minutes left in the third to cut the deficit to 8-3, but again, the Pioneers tacked on two more goals.
“(Conestoga) is a great team from top to bottom,” McNeill said. “They scored and controlled the face-offs, and that’s what we’ve been struggling with. If you can’t win the face-offs, you can’t control the ball. They beat us to every ground ball and their goalie kept stopping our shots. We had opportunities in the first half, and we needed to score and make it competitive.”
Rich and Matt Rambo scored at the 9:08 and 8:40 marks of the fourth quarter, respectively, but the goal differential was too much.
Conestoga beat Abington goalkeeper Jesse McGinley (17 saves) and scored the final three goals and by the end, had not just dominated the scoreboard, but the stat sheet as well. The Ghosts were outshot 33-19, while Conestoga also won twice as many face-offs as Abington.
With the loss, Abington will prepare to play the loser of Garnet Valley – which fell to top-seeded Springfield 8-7 in three overtimes - in the third-place game this Thursday (2 p.m.) at Lower Merion High School. The Pioneers will face Springfield in the district championship game later in the day.
“We still have a high seed in the playoffs, and we could still see Conestoga again,” said Rich Rambo, who finished with two goals. “We want a state championship though. That was the main goal of our season and that would wipe every other loss away.”
Win or lose, Abington is in the state tournament, but a win would give the Ghosts a much easier road to the to the top – a place that would more than make up for their most recent loss – the first of which came by more than one goal against the district’s number two seed.
“If you win the state championship, you forget about everything else,” McNeill said. “But there’s a lot of work to do and before that can happen, there are a lot of good teams to play. It’s something we can do, but we have to work on it. As we make progress, we take another step forward and try to get as far as we can get.”
Central Bucks East 9, Hatboro 6
The Patriots ensured themselves a berth in the state tournament with Tuesday’s win while the Hatters will have one last chance to earn a spot in states.
Central Bucks East (16-4) will face Lower Merion in a playback game on Thursday, 6 p.m., at Radnor High School to determine the fifth and sixth seeds from District One in the state tournament. The Hatters (17-5) will face Radnor on Thursday, 4 p.m., at West Chester Rustin High School. The winner will be the seventh seed from District One in the state tournament while the loser will go home.
In Tuesday’s playback game between the Continental Conference co-champs, the Patriots held a 2-1 lead at the end of one quarter and took a 6-2 lead into the intermission. They led 9-4 heading into the final quarter when the Hatters connected for a pair of goals.
Matt Brodzik led the Patriots with the hat trick while Ben Auteri and Alex Fetterman each added a pair of goals. Fetterman also had an assist. Conor McSherry and Chris Vetter both contributed a goal and an assist. Brendan Coleman, Rob Ferrall and Parker Self each contributed assists.
For the Hatters, Eddie Coombs led the way with three goals while Ryan Kreston (one assist), Bob Nagel and Kyle Schwartz each added single goals.
East goalie Harrison Holak had 19 saves on 29 shots while Dino Vitale had nine saves on 31 shots.
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