McGovern’s two goals lift CR South past Perkiomen Valley

GRATERFORD >> She’ll never look back at this season as a failure.

No, for Perkiomen Valley senior Kelsey Giese, it was never a certainty that a roster that turned over as much as the Vikings would reach the PAC-10 Final, let alone make the District 1-AAA playoffs.

Unfortunately, that ride in districts came to an abrupt end as the Vikings couldn’t overcome two second-half goals from Boston College verbal commit Caroline McGovern in a 2-1 loss to Council Rock South in both team’s district opener Monday afternoon in Graterford.

“I feel like we proved ourselves this year,” PV senior captain and Indiana commit Kelsey Giese said. “It’s a shame that we couldn’t have made it further into districts but I think as a team, we should all be proud of ourselves for this season.”

The loss sends the Vikings home early after the team was one win away from reaching a state playoff berth last season. That team lost to Phoenixville in the district playback round behind two penalty stroke goals from then-senior and now Old Dominion freshman Bailey Quinn. This year, the Vikings couldn’t withstand a late CR South barrage and couldn’t capitalize on their chances — a recipe for a loss no matter what game one plays in.

“We let them control the tempo (in the second half),” Giese said. “We weren’t playing from behind but we were letting them control the game, which we don’t like. No team likes not controlling it.”

Giese did her best to keep the Vikings afloat in the district playoff race, scoring a goal while Laura Shelton (Penn commit), also a senior, tallied an assist as the Vikings held a 1-0 lead entering the half. Kerri Hanshaw, PV’s goalkeeper in the first half, was also a standout performer, registering seven saves in the cage.  

It just wasn’t enough against a relentless Council Rock South team that had been effectively shut down in the first 30 minutes.

McGovern, a junior, capitalized twice on a relentless offensive surge that saw the Golden Hawks (13-6 overall) tally 12 corners in the final 30 minutes. That, coupled with 10-save goalkeeping from Julia Pero, lifts CR South to a date with district No. 2 seed Downingtown East Wednesday at 3:30 p.m.

“We came out in the second half and still weren’t at the level we needed to be at, then in the last 15 minutes it finally hit them that this might be their last game,” McGovern said. “We took it down the field and forced more corners which was definitely what we needed.”

The furious attack finally paid dividends with 10 minutes remaining as McGovern, off an insert from Tori Wright, lifted a perfectly-placed aerial over the outstretched stick of the PV goalkeeper and into the right corner of the cage to tie it at 1.

“We practice that a lot,” McGovern said. “A bunch of girls on the team, when we run our corners at the end of practice that’s definitely what we work on. I practice it a lot. Sometimes it lands in front of the goalie and someone hits it in but that one just went in.”

Two minutes later, it was the same connection that put the Golden Hawks up for good as McGovern took the insert from Wright before firing a missile into the back of the cage to cap the scoring while Pero stood tall late, defending against a late PV surge to cap the win.

“It came down to keeping the ball to the outside, we were tying to force stuff in the middle a lot,” McGovern said. “We knew we needed to start getting it to the outside and Sarah (Womer) and Mikayla (Van Aken) started forcing it up the sideline and crossing those balls and that’s what was getting us those corners.

“We’ve talked about that before the game that’s what we had to do coming in, we just didn’t execute it until the second half.”