Academy New Church rolls past Council Rock North
BRYN ATHYN >> Wednesday’s non-league matchup with a tired and shorthanded Council Rock North team turned into a shooting gallery for Academy of the New Church, as the Lions fired 29 shots at the Rock North cage in a 9-3 win.
To get shots and ultimately score goals a team has to get possession of the ball and ANC did that in every way Wednesday afternoon. The first way the Lions were able to gain possession was by a dominating performance at the faceoff dot from Eric Carr.
The senior long stick midfielder won 14 of 16 face-offs giving ANC a lot of back-to-back possessions. Carr won nine of his 14 draws in the first half losing one draw in the first and one in the third.
“He’s been doing that for us all year,” ANC coach Rob Forster said. “He gets the ball rolling for our team. When he wins faceoffs he gets going and the offense gets going.”
On top of a decided advantage in faceoffs, ANC won the ground ball battle 22-16 and turned the ball over one less time, which might not sound like a difference but the shear quantity of possessions the Lions had made the discrepancy bigger.
“That’s what we preach every day at practice is hard work and getting after it and being scrappy,” Forster said. “Everything starts with ground balls. It’s the first thing we look at in the stat sheet is to make sure we’re winning the ground ball battle and usually we come out on top.”
Of course getting possession doesn’t mean as much if ball doesn’t get scored. The attack combination of Bryson Rhee, James Vandergrift and Andrew Lapenta took care of that.
Vandergrift functioned as the set up man as he registered four second half assists to go along with his two first-half goals. Rhee finished the game with a pair of goals and a pair of assists and Lapenta finished with a game high four goals.
“They play together all year and our offense has done well,” Forster said specifically of the attack unit’s chemistry particularly with the first midfielders.
The win pushes ANC to 10-2 on the season and could be looking at a potential No. 1 seed headed into the Friends School League playoffs. The Lions still have some business to take care of as they still have big games with Westtown and rival Shipley.
“Our number one goal is to win the Friends League and then do well in the Inter-Ac invitational at the end of the year,” Forester said.
