O’Donnell’s 4 goals help North Penn beat Souderton for 5th straight win

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FRANCONIA >> The North Penn girls lacrosse team kept its last-season surge to secure a spot in the District 1 playoffs going Wednesday night.

Bri O’Donnell scored four goals – including a personal 3-0 run beginning late in the first half – and handed out a pair of assists as the Lady Knights earned their fifth straight win, topping host Souderton 11-7 in their Suburban One League National Conference matchup.

“The more you win the more confidence you get. You keep moving forward and see things that work or don’t work,” North Penn coach Heather Mellow said. “Finally starting to put things together.”

Kaitlyn Phifer added three goals while Jenn DeLongis found the back of the net twice for the Lady Knights (11-6, 6-4 conference), who never trailed after DeLongis scored to break a 4-4 tie at 9:38 in the first half.

“We were playing really sloppy in the first half – throwing balls away, just not getting good looks going to goal. I feel like they had their eye on Bri and kind of knew her game plan, how she plays at least, I should say,” Mellow said. “But, you know what, we kind of figure things out. We’ve got other people besides Brianna on our team that can score.”

Both teams came into Wednesday in needed on a win to help claim a spot in the postseason. North Penn is ranked 26th in the laxpower.com rankings with the top 32 making the District 1 field. Souderton was just on the outside at 33rd, making the loss – the fourth in the last five games for Big Red – a tough blow to its playoff hopes

“You never know, depending on what other teams do, but we’d like to kind of control our own destiny and not leave it up to fate,” Indians coach Lindsay Walbrandt said. “Tonight would have definitely helped, but we have another game tomorrow and we’ll stay focused on that.”

Souderton and North Penn play their regular-season finales Thursday. The Indians visit Pennridge at 7 p.m. while the Lady Knights host SOL American champ Plymouth Whitemarsh at 7 p.m.

“We beat these guys, we still continue to stay in. A win against PW would really help us out against who we would play,” Mellow said. “Although who knows, we stay where we are we could be playing (Central Bucks) South, which could be fun to play them again.”

Carlie Doughty paced Souderton with three goals – all coming in the first half – while Sarah Goodwin scored twice.

“We couldn’t string together goals,” Walbrandt said. “We had good movement, but we couldn’t find the lanes sometimes or then we were getting in and shooting it right to the goalie’s stick. And (NP goalie Michelle Dyck) made some good saves tonight, she did, she’s a talented goalie, but we just couldn’t get our rhythm all the time.”

The loss to North Penn was the first for Souderton since 2013.

“It’s disappointing, this rivalry’s big,” Walbrandt said. “So, you always like to come out on top, especially when they play they way that they do in my opinion kind of unsportsmanlike… but we felt like were playing a clean game and that wasn’t always getting reported, playing the right way, I’ll say that.”

Back-to-back losses to Pennridge and Council Rock North had North Penn sitting at 6-6. But since then the Lady Knights have ripped off five straight victories — reaching double-digit goals in each game of the streak, including 21 against Quakertown.

“It’s a shame it’s the end of the season, cause we’re finally starting to gel as a team and really learning to play well with each other,” Mellow said. “So, then it’s like season ends and you got start all over again, but yeah, I think the whole team is actually doing a much better job in seeing what works and what doesn’t work.”

After DeLongis’ strike broke the 4-4 tie, Sam Tossona converted on a free-position shot to give North Penn at 6-4 lead at 8:30 in the first half.

Doughty forced a turnover and drove in to complete her hat trick at 2:47 to get Souderton within one, but O’Donnell answered 51 seconds later give the Lady Knights a 7-5 edge at halftime.

“We lost a little bit of momentum when we weren’t capitalizing on the little things and that’s what killed us tonight,” Walbrandt said. “We played our hearts out the whole time – I never doubted that, the effort was there, it was just we weren’t doing some of the little things right.

“A bad shot here and not connecting our passes there or a swing we didn’t need to take there is what kind of stopped our momentum. And then it’s hard when a team stalls like that, it’s tiring on us.”

O’Donnell struck twice more for the first two goals of the second half – using a spin move to get free of a defender at 18:11 and then hitting twice at 13:54 for a 9-5 advantage.

“She started out like the first couple weeks she started off a little slow. But then she’s really stepped up, she really has,” said Mellow of O’Donnell.

A Goodwin free position goal with 12:01 left cut the margin to three before O’Donnell connected with DeLongis at 4:15 with Phifer’s tally at 1:40 giving North Penn its biggest lead at 11-6.

Souderton’s lone lead of the contest came when Goodwin scored to make it 1-0 at 24:17 before O’Donnell and Phifer put North Penn ahead at 20:01.

After a Doughty goal tied things at two, goals by Phifer and Julia Keffer gave NP a 4-2 lead at 14:02, but Leah Goodwin and Doughty got the Indians back level at 12:04. But DeLongis spun off a defender scored from close range to put North Penn up for good at 8:30.

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Mike Cabrey

Mike Cabrey
Mike Cabrey is the Assistant Sports Editor for The Reporter and Montgomery News. Email him at mcabrey@thereporteronline.com.

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