The story of today's Patriot division battle between Pennsbury and Council Rock North had a different ending for the Falcons as compared to their first meeting this time last year. It was another 1-0 game, but this time North came out on top and they earned it. It is always a good fight between our teams, said PHS head coach, Traci Curtis. We enjoy competing against them and love the challenge they present as it always results in a few good lessons for us. Today we came in having no idea what to expect and we left humbled and forced to look inside ourselves. As coaches, we tried to prepare the girls from top to bottom, inside and out, including finding turf time to practice for the change of surface, but we just fell short today in too many ways. This loss will sting for awhile. We really needed to tally a win in that league column. Jules Singer, who stepped up to lead the CRN team is doing a really nice job and it showed. Her girls were determined, hungry, and full of fire throughout the entire game. They did a lot of nice things out there on both sides of the ball. We were deadlocked at 0-0 the entire time, but they were successful in finishing in the circle and we were not. They outshot us 10-2 and created better scoring opportunities. The huge difference maker for them was Sierra Kim in the back. She was the driving force in stopping our entire offense from generating anything in the circle. She seriously stopped us in our tracks almost every time. Kim denied us many times trying to penetrate from all sides allowing us to have only had 2 shots on goal. That stat is just immensely disappointing, but also eye opening. The Falcons earned 8 penalty corners to North's 5, but just could not convert on any of those set pieces. Kaylin Flannery had a beautiful straight shot on a corner for us and their goalie had a great stop, explained Curtis. That was one of our only strong attempts at a goal. We had some good crosses that went wide and we just missed, but we have to find a way to make those "almost" plays turn into "we did it" plays! Our mistakes hurt us in every part of the field, from corner flubs, to missing simple passes, to forgetting rules in a rush - there is no room for those things in a SOL matchup like this. The absolute best part of our game was our goalie, Jordan Vradenburgh. She saved nine of Rock's ten shots and kept us at 0-0 until there were 4 minutes left in the final quarter. Jordan stood strong and protected that cage with determination for 56 minutes - she did her job and she did it well leading from the back. Other stand out defensive players included Riley Henderson, Olivia Graebner, and Angelina Kenney who together took control of the backfield and held off North as well as possible. The lone goal came from a tipped rebound off pads by Sierra Kim (with the help of teammate, Brynn B.). With 4 minutes left in the game, the orange and black felt they still had a shot to move the ball up field and create something. At 2 minutes we called a time out to collect ourselves and take a look at what needed to be done. When we returned to the field we were successful in getting the ball into the circle and then earning a corner as the clock struck zero so we had a golden opportunity to tie it up, said Curtis. Unfortunately, things did not pan out for us in that moment and the game ended in their favor. All we can do is learn from it and apply it to our preparation for the next step in the SOL path. Kudos to North on their performance and never giving up. Our rematch has to wait until our final game of the regular season in October. We have a lot of work to do between now and then. Pennsbury will travel to North Penn on Thursday and then host Pennridge on Monday.