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LOWER GWYNEDD – The Owen J. Roberts field hockey team never saw it coming.
Maddy Hardy took the quick tap from teammate Sarah Harding on a free hit just outside the circle and - after a few dribbles - would up and fired a rocket into the back of the cage, giving Central Bucks South a 1-0 lead midway through the opening half of Saturday night’s District One Class AAAA title game.
Things were never quite the same again.
The Titans took a 2-0 lead into halftime, fought off a second-half surge by the Wildcats before scoring an insurance goal on their way to an exhilarating 3-0 win and the school’s first ever district field hockey championship.
"I'm not going to be able to catch my breath for hours," Harding said.
“This means everything,” senior Kate Schneider added. “We worked so hard since August, and all the hard work paid off. It is such a good feeling.”
The jubilant celebration scene after Saturday’s big win was a marked contrast to the one a year earlier when the Titans lost a heartbreaker to Neshaminy in penalty strokes in the district title game. The Titans – who would be graduating five key senior starters from that squad – had missed out on a golden opportunity to win a district crown.
Or at least so it seemed.
But somebody apparently forgot to tell this year’s upstart squad of a few seasoned veterans and some bright and talented newcomers that this was supposed to be a rebuilding year, and on a crisp November night, they put their names in the school’s record books when they captured the district title.
“Someone needs to pinch me because I don’t believe it yet,” rookie coach Christina Ford said. “It’s awesome.
“This team was psyched last night – we had a team dinner. This morning they were sending text messages. Everybody was pumped for this game. They really wanted it, and they knew they were going to work really hard to get it. This team deserves it. Not only are the great field hockey players, they’re great individuals. They’re awesome girls.”
The two teams brought decidedly different styles of play to the field. The Wildcats are a physical team, the Titans are not. The Titans rely on speed and a short passing game, the Wildcats do not.“We haven’t played a team that physical this year - even playing against the boy, Zach Davis, last week,” Harding said. “In the second half, they just got really physical.”
In the end, the game might well have been defined by two plays.
The first was Harding’s goal that stunned the Wildcats and their fans, who protested loudly that the junior midfielder was not in the circle. That argument held no weight, and the goal stood.
“They all thought - typically Maddy just hits the ball as hard as she can and we try and get a stick on it,” Hughes said. “I don’t know. It just happened to work.”
The powerful goal not only stunned the Wildcats, it gave the Titans a boost as they got on the scoreboard at the 16:43 mark of the opening half.
“Once it went in, they were standing there like deer in headlights,” Harding said. “Our team set a goal to score first and early.
“They’re a really good team, and I respect their coach (Clarence Janelle), who’s the X-Caliber coach.”
“That goal was huge,” Ford added. “Our goal is to come out hard and fast and be the first to score. It sets the tone right from the beginning of what we come out and try to do. It was awesome.”
The Titans fought off three Wildcat corners in the opening half, and goalie Liz Lewallen turned away all three shots she faced in the half.
And then just when it seemed as though the Titans would need to be content with a 1-0 halftime lead, junior Franny Ryan scored on a rebound off the goalie’s pads of a shot by Kayla Kenney with one tenth of a second showing on the scoreboard clock.
“I just tried to get my stick on any part of the ball I could,” Ryan said. “You have to capitalize on all those chances you get.”
Ryan acknowledged that it was hard for the Titans to develop any kind of continuity against an aggressive and strong Wildcat squad.
“They were really physical,” the junior forward said. “It’s hard. We have to have our small passes, and it just makes it harder.”
Neither team generated a whole lot of offense in the second half, but as expected, the Wildcats began to play with a sense of urgency and kept the ball in the Titans’ end of the field for a sustained period of time midway through the half.
“It was close a couple of times,” junior defensive back Kelly Hamilton said. “When it’s close to the goal like that, you pray it doesn’t go in.
“We played tough defense. The key was keeping it on our sticks and taking it out of the circle as soon as possible. The second half lasted a long, long time.”
After the Titans survived the Wildcats’ third and final OJR corner of the half without harm, Ford called a timeout with 6:08 remaining.
“In the last eight minutes, they had us because we were in their defensive circle for a while,” Harding said. “We were panicky, and that’s when Ford called a timeout and said, ‘Breathe, relax.’”
“You just had to not let them get into your head,” Schneider added. “They were playing a physical game. We got thrown, we got tossed around.”
But in the end, the Titans were the ones who were still standing, and they put the finishing touches on the big win when the opportunistic Kenney turned a Harding pass into a goal with 1:04 remaining. The celebration began the moment the final horn sounded.“It means so much,” Hamilton said. “It’s been so much fun, and our team deserves it. We worked so hard for the past four months.”
“It was so important for us to get back to this spot and win it,” Harding added. “We lost a lot of seniors from last year’s team, but we did pick up the pieces again to win it this season. It means a lot.”
Successful teams invariably talk about good chemistry. This team, according to Harding, lives it.
“The thing with our team is we all love each other, and we all play together,” the junior midfielder said. “Even outside of field hockey, we just all hang out – it’s not like we don’t like one person on our team.
“We play for each other because we all want the same thing, and there’s been not one ounce of drama on this team because we all respect each other.”
The Titans will make a return trip to Wissahickon on Tuesday at 6 p.m. for an opening round PIAA Class AAAA Tournament game against Cocalico, the fifth place team from District 3.
CENTRAL BUCKS SOUTH 3, OWEN J. ROBERTS 0
Owen J. Roberts 0 0-0
Central Bucks South 2 1-3
Goals/Assists: CB South – Maddy Harding 1-1, Kayla Kenney 1-1, Franny Ryan 1-0, Sarah Hughes 0-1.
Shots: OJR-5, CBS-5.
Corners: OJR-6, CBS-3.
Saves: Shelby Miller (OJR) 2, Liz Lewallen (CBS) 4.
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