BUCKTOWN– It was a tale of two halves Monday afternoon as Owen J. Roberts hosted Perkiomen Valley in both team’s season openers.
Despite trailing early on and eventually being tied at 10 apiece in the second half, Owen J. Roberts scored 10 goals unanswered en route to a 20-10 victory.
Anna Dempsey, Kerry Huzzard and Maddie Gebert combined for 16 scores, as the Wildcats (1-0) got their season started on the right foot under first-year head coach Joe Tornetta.
Dempsey led the way with six goals while Gebert and Huzzard each scored five.
“It feels good to see the kids get the job done today,’ said Tornetta, who coached at Great Valley when it was a part of the PAC-10. “We struggled early, but we persevered, hung tough and never put our heads down even when we were down early.’
Emma Britton highlighted the Vikings (0-1) effort with four goals and an assist, while Anna Koniencki netted three.
In the opening five minutes, Perkiomen Valley jumped out to a 3-0 lead with goals from Laura Dunne, Koniencki and Britton.
But OJR’s Gebert had an answer just a minute later as she stuck one in the right side of the net to give the Wildcats their first goal of the season.
PV’s Britton scored another with an assist from Dunne to make it 4-1 in the seventh minute.
But Owen J. kept sticking around.
Dempsey made a nifty spin-move and flicked it in from the right wing to make it 4-2. A few minutes later, Alli Bevivino scored to cut the Viking lead to just one at 4-3.
“It was nerve-wracking in the early minutes,’ said Dempsey, a sophomore. “This was the first time in a long time that we were on the field together, so we took some time getting into rhythm. But once we got settled in and started to play our game we worked so much better together.’
Perkiomen Valley responded with two quick goals of its own, as Christie Balestra and Koniencki each scored within 35 seconds of each other to give the Vikings a 6-3 lead with 7:43 to go in the half.
Two minutes later, Bevivino found Dempsey, who found the back of the net to make it 6-4.
The Vikings again answered as Balestra found Britton for the score to extend it to 7-4 with just over five minutes left in the half.
And that was more than enough time for the Wildcats.
Gebert scored back-to-back goals within 90 seconds of each other to cut the lead to 7-6. Then Huzzard netted one with 55 seconds left in the half to tie it 7-7.
“It felt good to work our way back and tie it after being down the entire first half,’ said Huzzard. “Early on in the first half, we were sort of clustered and had a hard time setting up our plays. So it felt good to end the first half all tied up.’
Balestra scored just over a minute into the second half to give the Vikings an 8-7 lead.
But that was the last lead Perkiomen Valley would muster.
Morgan Stone, Gebert and Dempsey each netted goals within five minutes of one another, giving OJR a 10-8 lead.
Koniencki responded with a goal of her own, shortly followed by Britton’s steal leading to a goal to make it 10-10.
And that’s when OJR took complete control.
Huzzard (4), Dempsey (3), Bevivino (2) and Gebert scored the final 10 goals of the game, including assists from Rachel Sharpe and Dempsey, to help put the clamps on their first PAC-10 victory of the season.
For OJR, there were several things that gave the Wildcats the edge in the second half.
“We took some time to learn how the defense was moving and responding throughout the game,’ said Gebert. “We spent a lot of time in the second half picking up their tendencies and we worked hard to take advantage of them late in the game.’
“We started to fight for the ball on every position, and that made all the difference today,’ said Tornetta. “There are a lot of things we’re still going to need to work on, but it feels really good to come out with a win.’
And for Perkiomen Valley, it was tough to watch their early lead disappear, but it could be a loss to motivate the team during the season.
“Today was a little glimpse of what the girls are capable of,’ said head coach Kathy Kelley. “Coach Tornetta did a great job of rallying his girls to execute their game plan in the second half. We learned a lot today, and we know what we’ll need to keep working on to keep getting better.’
Owen J. Roberts will look to stay in rhythm as the Wildcats face Boyertown Wednesday night, a Bears team which hasn’t lost a PAC-10 game in 11 seasons. Perkiomen Valley will host Spring-Ford Wednesday afternoon, hoping to earn its first PAC-10 win of the season.
