Sowers, Upper Dublin dispatch Springfield
WEST CHESTER >> More for confirmation than anything, Zac Methlie’s post-game interview started with a question from the player.
“What did Sowers have?” was the Springfield long-stick midfielder’s query about Upper Dublin attackman Michael Sowers. The technical answer (two goals, four assists) was in question. The broad answer — that Sowers had too much for Springfield to handle Tuesday night and much more than they wanted to allow — had been well established.
Sowers’ nightly tally helped No. 3 seed Upper Dublin claim a 9-2 win over No. 10 Springfield in the District One semifinals at West Chester Henderson.
Methlie spent most of his day shadowing the Princeton-bound All-American. And for a half, Springfield (15-7) bottled up the Cardinals’ array of attackers, trailing by a slim 3-2 margin and shutting them out in the second quarter, something few teams have done this season.
But in the increasingly desperate search for goals by a Springfield offense that didn’t click Tuesday, the critical mass of UD’s attack was too much to constrain.
“Our coaches do a great job of putting me in different positions to go to the cage and I can kind of get creative off of those looks,” Sowers said. “So I think that it was a little bit of both.”
“You’ve just got to stay poised and know that momentum can change at any moment,” Methlie said. “You’ve got to make a big play, hopefully the momentum switches and you can go on a run.”
Even in defeat, the Cougars are just the third team in 21 games to keep Upper Dublin to single-digits in goals — joining the 9-8 overtime win Springfield recorded May 12 and Avon Grove, a 6-5 winner April 30, which awaits the Cardinals in the title game Thursday.
In the game of runs that Methlie spoke hopefully of Tuesday, Springfield’s never arrived. Upper Dublin (19-2) scored three goals in 53 seconds in the first quarter, three in 1:49 in the third and three in three minutes in the fourth. Nick Vernacchio scored twice, and Evan Scott added the final four markers.
Springfield’s offense was confined to the second quarter. Mike Gerzabek opened the scoring at 7:39, then Kyle Long found Mike Vent on the crease with 1:59 left in the half to cut the deficit to one.
Kyle Long to Mike Vent just after the man up expires. 3-2 UD. 1:59 to half. pic.twitter.com/S4sQc6B2IG
— Matthew De George (@sportsdoctormd) May 24, 2016
Despite Andrew Pickett winning 10 of 15 faceoffs, the Cardinals forced Springfield to regularly move backward, allowing their aggressive defense to hound Springfield ball-carriers and force turnovers.
Foremost in that effort was Jack Rapine, who missed the first Springfield game for disciplinary reasons. The Johns Hopkins signee, who said he was “the most excited kid” on the field, made up for lost time.
“They tend to throw the ball around up top a lot, so in the beginning of the game and towards the end, we were trying to press out on them as much as we could and have them throw the ball as much as we could,” Rapine said. “We know that when we get them throwing the ball around, us rotating, we knew we can make plays.”
Springfield was outshot, 34-15, and even 12 saves from James Spence couldn’t hold back the tide of offense. The Cardinals’ Dillon Lojeski stopped 10 shots, including seven in the second half in helping UD’s program-best postseason run tick off another milestone.
“There’s nothing like playing with your best friends, and this program, we’ve never gotten this far in history,” Sowers said. “And you just look to keep going. Each game is the biggest.”
