To view game action photos, visit the photo gallery at the following link: http://photos.suburbanonesports.com/
BERWYN – Too bad field hockey isn’t a 30-minute game.
If it was, the Springfield Spartans would be celebrating a huge upset victory over Villa Maria Academy.
Unfortunately for the Spartans, there was the little matter of playing the 30-minute second half in Tuesday’s District One Class AA semifinal game against the top-seeded Hurricanes.
That tipped the scales completely in Villa’s favor as the Hurricanes scored six second-half goals in a dazzling display of hockey, turning a 1-0 halftime deficit into a 6-1 win over the Spartans on a brisk fall day at Conestoga High School.
“(In the first half), I think it was just we were ready to play and to play really quickly,” Springfield coach Linda Nixon said. “The 10-minute halftime was too long for us. We left our game there. We didn’t come out of halftime to play.”
The Hurricanes did, and that was bad news for the Spartans.“We came out pumped up,” Villa captain Molly Murphy said. “We were a little bit frustrated with the first half. We had a couple of opportunities that were so close.
“It was like a basketball game where there’s a lid on the basket.”
That lid certainly came off the basket in the second half but not before the Spartans threw a bit of a scare into the top-seeded Hurricanes in an evenly played first half.
“They weren’t used to losing, and we definitely came out with the right mentality,” Springfield’s Ellie Field said. “We were ready, and we knew we were going to play fierce and strong.
“We didn’t think they were ready for that, and we were right.”
The Spartans drew three early corners but came up empty. Then it was Villa’s turn, but the Hurricanes came up empty on three corners of their own.
Late in the half, the Spartans were awarded a penalty stroke after goalie Julie D’Ascenzo’s glove save of a shot by Kierstan McLennan – thanks to a ruling in the Spartans’ favor that D’Ascenzo had advanced the ball.Field made it count when she fired a shot into the right corner of the cage.
“I basically clear my head and put it in the corner,” Field said. “I don’t look at the goalie. I just look at the ball.”
The Spartans took that 1-0 lead into halftime.
“We knew we had opportunities, but maybe we were playing a little bit flat,” Murphy said. “We had to step it up. We knew with the team we had this year and just the combinations we have, we knew it was possible, and we just came out fired up.”Helping to light that fire was Villa coach Maurene Polley with a spirited halftime speech.
“I just told them to dig down deep,” the Hurricanes’ coach said. “They needed to come together as a team.
“They’re a good team, and they needed to wake up and play like a good team. We talk all the time about drawing from the well, and they needed to do that. They needed some fire in their hearts, and that’s what they came back with – fire in their hearts.”
The Spartans had no answer for that fire, nor could they match the intensity of the suddenly inspired Hurricanes.
It took Villa less than three minutes to knot the score when Murphy sent a perfect lead pass to Caroline Troncelliti ahead of the pack, and the sophomore forward found herself one-on-one with goalie Maggie Olson.
Troncelliti used some outstanding stickwork to elude Olson’s slide tackle at the top of the circle and found the cage for a goal that knotted the score 1-1.Five minutes later, Marie Elena Bolles found Troncelliti on the left post with a rocket pass, and the sophomore forward slammed it home to make it a 2-1 game.
“Going into the game, we definitely had our intensity up, and we definitely had the right mindset,” Field said. “Once we were in the game, we thought, ‘Alright, we got this.’
“We weren’t expecting their intensity level to rise as much as it did. As soon as they came out and were pushing it, we didn’t play as hard as we did in the first half.”
Midway through the second half, the Spartans managed a pair of shots in a bang-bang sequence, but D’Ascenzo turned both away.
When Meghan Murphy (Molly Murphy assist) scored at the 9:12 mark, the floodgates were open.
A goal on a perfectly executed corner from Molly Murphy to Meghan Murphy to Samantha Ostoich for the score was followed by an unassisted goal by Ostoich. A late goal by Troncelliti (Bolles assist) capped Villa’s dazzling 6-0 second half run.
“We stopped marking , so it made it infinitely easier for them to set themselves up,” Nixon said. “They had nice goals. I did watch them play on Friday, and I thought we could play with them. Obviously, only one half.”While Villa will face Sacred Heart in an all-Catholic Academies League district final, the Spartans remain alive in the hunt for a state playoff berth. On Friday, they will face Upper Perkiomen – which was upset by Sacred Heart 2-0 in quarterfinal action on Wednesday – in a battle for the final spot.
VILLA MARIA ACADEMY 6, SPRINGFIELD (MONTCO) 1
Springfield 1 0-1
Villa 0 6-6
Goals/Assists: Springfield – Ellie Field 1-0. Villa – Caroline Troncelliti 3-0, Samantha Ostoich 2-0, Meghan Murphy 1-1, Molly Murphy 0-3, Mary Elena Boles 0-1.
Shots: S-5, V-19
Corners-S-3, V-5
Saves: Maggie Olson (S) 6, Julia Boles (S) 3, Julie D’Ascenzo (V) 3.
- Log in to post comments
0
