Bullseye: Owen J. Roberts earns state playoff berth

WEST CHESTER >> Their sights were set.

Back in March, the Owen J. Roberts girls lacrosse team set up an archery target for themselves.

The target symbolized their goals as the season progressed. The more difficult the shot, the more deserving the reward.

“On the outside ring was to get better at each practice, that was the first goal,” said junior Anna Dempsey. “As it moved closer to the middle, our goals became more and more important to us. We wanted to qualify for districts, win PAC-10s. The main target, though, was to qualify for states.”

Bullseye.

On Saturday morning, the Wildcats nailed their target, qualifying for the PIAA Championship with a 12-9 win over Merion Mercy at West Chester East High School in the quarterfinal round of the District I playoffs.

“This is incredible,” said senior Maddie Gebert. “It’s been our goal to qualify for states the past two seasons. Last season, we came up short, but to be able to do it my senior year — it’s hard to put it into words.”

Saturday’s result sends No. 6 Owen J. Roberts to the district semifinals where they will take on No. 15 Central Bucks West/No. 10 Bishop Shanahan on Tuesday at Downingtown West for a berth in the district final.

“We’re not satisfied yet,” said Gebert. “We’re all really excited to be going to states, but we also know that now we’ve got to set new goals for ourselves.”

With standout senior attack Kerry Huzzard sidelined with an injury sustained in the second round last Thursday, head coach Joe Tornetta and the Wildcats found themselves needing to make an adjustment coming in.

“She’s a key player to our team,” said Tornetta of Huzzard. “To all of the sudden have to fill her space, that’s a huge adjustment to make — especially in the playoffs. It limits the things we can do and the substitutions we can make.

“Lou (Eloise Gebert) stepped in as a starter in (Huzzard’s) place. She come a long way since the season started. Frankie Carroll and Kelsey Kilgallon both stepped up and made some big plays for us, too. They really came through when we were counting on them.”

Maddie Gebert led the charge with four scores while Dempsey had a hat trick and two assists — all in the second half. Kilgallon and Carroll each scored twice while Anna Lavelle had a lone tally. Eloise Gebert notched two assists filling in for Huzzard and Claire Hampton made eight saves in goal.

“When the money was on the line and the pressure was on, these girls really stepped up,” said Tornetta. “I’m proud of these girls for getting it done and achieving their main goal.”

Saturday’s result also brings Merion Mercy’s run to a stall. Mercy will head to district playbacks on Tuesday.

Entering districts as the No. 19 seed, Mercy was an underdog the entire way. After opening up with a 13-11 upset of No. 14 Spring-Ford, MM followed that up with a head-turning 12-9 win over No. 3 Great Valley.

Caroline Steller paced Merion Mercy with five scores against OJR while Kaely Kyle, Allie Scannapieco, Amelia Piccone and Caroline Heath each scored once.

“We did a lot of great things just to get here today,” said Merion Mercy head coach John Geary after Saturday’s loss. “And our run isn’t over yet. I think we’ve showed that we belonged in this tournament. Hopefully we can continue it on Tuesday and Thursday and that we can go on to states.”

Throughout, Merion looked like it was right where it belonged, hanging with Owen J. Roberts and taking its first lead at 8-7 just over a minute into the second half.

The final 20 minutes belonged to Dempsey and OJR, though. The Wilcats dominated the draw controls 5-2 and limited Mercy to just two shots on goal in the final 20 minutes.

Dempsey figured in on all five of the Wildcats’ second half goals, notching two assists and putting an exclamation point with a sweet alley-oop goal off a feed from Eloise Gebert to make it 11-9 with 13:35 left before scoring the decider.

“We want to go further,” said Dempsey. “We’ve done a lot of really good things so far this year, but I don’t think anyone is ready for it to be over.”

NOTES >> Hampton is now 4-0 on the season since taking over for Sara Maute (injury) in goal. …Merion Mercy received five yellow cards in the loss.