North Penn rallies in 2nd half, beats Hatboro-Horsham for 1st win

TOWAMENCIN >> After two losses to open the season, the North Penn girls lacrosse team needed something positive to come out of Wednesday afternoon’s game with visiting Hatboro-Horsham.

“It was a must win for our confidence and just to continue on,” Maidens coach Heather Mellow said.

North Penn found something that worked in the second half of the Suburban One League non-conference matchup. The Maidens scored three straight goals to erase a 5-4 halftime deficit and limited the Hatters to just one tally in the final 25 minutes to claim their first win of 2016 with an 8-6 victory.

“We lost two of our games before this and a lot of it was draw controls didn’t come as easy to us as we wanted them to,” North Penn senior Chloe Novak said. “But we’re finally obviously figuring it out and growing each day as a team. So obviously we got the draw a lot today and it feeds us and we’re starting to figure out how we work on attack and everyone’s contributing all over the field.

“We’re just putting the pieces today. So the first two losses, right now they don’t matter to us cause we built from them and we showed it today.”

Kaitlyn Phifer finished with three goals for the Maidens (1-2), while Bri O’Donnell scored both her goals after halftime, her second coming with 12:52 left to put North Penn up 7-5.

A Carly Daley strike pulled Hatboro-Horsham (0-2) back within one, but Jenn DeLongis found the back of the net with 9:45 left push the margin back up to two. The Maidens proceeded to work the clock while Michelle Dyck two of her nine saves on one HH possession to help seal the win.

“I’m just relieved. We needed a win so badly,” Mellow said. “And especially against these guys, it’s always been a pretty good rivalry with these guys. And they have some good players, too.”

Syd Rausa collected three goals to pace the Hatters (0-2), while Daley added two goals.

North Penn began this season with a 10-7 loss to Abington March 24 then open this week falling to Spring-Ford Tuesday by the same score line. Beating the Hatters give the Maidens a boost of momentum heading into SOL National play, which they begin Thursday, April 7 at home against Central Bucks South.

Hatboro-Horsham hosts CB South in a non-conference contest Monday.

“The first four games are really hard for us. Their next game is CB South. That’s going to be another really hard game,” Mellow said. “So, the team’s really being challenged right off the bat when we’re really trying to work out the kinks and figure each other out. We’re really being challenged right now.”

GIRLS #LACROSSE: North Penn's @chloe_novakk finds @jenndelongis for a goal to put NP up 8-6 2H vs. Hatboro-Horsham. pic.twitter.com/CZsGftOSOG

— Mike Cabrey (@mpcabrey) March 31, 2016

The Hatters held the lead three times Wednesday, the last coming when Rausa found Daley for a tally to make it 5-4 with 2:25 left in the first half. The advantage only lasted 2:12 into the second half as O’Donnell came around the net to score and pull the Maidens even 5-5.

Julia Keffer put North Penn up for good off an assist from DeLongis at 13:16 while O’Donnell claimed her second goal off a drive at 12:52.

“We just tried to play a little bit smarter,” Mellow said. “Offensively, we tried to move the ball around instead of what we were doing in the first half. Sometimes, I feel like these guys need a play in order to actually do something offensively and the second half I don’t even think we ran one play basically, not one real play. So they were actually able to just put things together on their own, which was nice.”

Daley’s strike 19 seconds later ended NP’s three-goal run, but Novak found DeLongis inside to push the lead back to two with less than 10 minutes remaining.

“When we played Abington we were a little slow out there, weren’t doing what we wanted to do,” Phifer said. “Today, though, we came out with a positive attitude. We were really motivated. Hatboro’s a great team, so we knew we had to come out strong and I think that’s what we did.”

Goals came fast in the opening 2:15 of the first half, which each teams finding the back of the net twice. After Phifer scored at 24:41, Rausa’s back-to-back goals had HH up 2-1 at 23:38. A Phifer free position goal at 22:45 tied the game.

“I was really motivated, especially coming off last game,” Phifer said. “We needed to win. So I just got a lot of momentum, relied on my teammates.”

Rausa gave the Hatters back the lead with her third goal at 17:40 then assisted on Morgan Crostarosa’s strike that made it 4-2 at 16:46. Goals by Phifer and Sam Tossona had North Penn level at 6:29 before Daley had Hatboro-Horsham leading 5-4 at the half.