Merion Mercy knocks off Wissahickon in District 1-2A opener
CONSHOHOCKEN >> Whenever the game’s momentum was in doubt, Merion Mercy’s Emily Hauck took control.
Hauck scored the first goal of the game against Wissahickon Tuesday afternoon and found the back of the cage again in the second half to take away any hope the Trojans had of a comeback.
No. 8 Merion Mercy defeated No. 9 Wissahickon, 4-1, in the first round of the District 1-2A playoffs at the Proving Grounds in Conshohocken.
Hauck gave the Golden Bears (11-7-1) a 1-0 advantage in the first four minutes of the game.
“One of our team goals is it’s really important for us to score in the first five minutes,” she said. “That’s one of our goals every game. We usually go out really hard and that’s always one of our major goals. It’s really good that we finished and got that.”
Merion kept that momentum going. They out-shot Wissahickon, 13-0, in the first half and added two more goals to go into the intermission with a 3-0 advantage.
The second goal came with 12:26 left until halftime. On a penalty corner, Olivian Knott sent the insert pass to Hauck, who passed it to Grace Lopresti. Lopresti’s shot beat the goalie to make it 2-0.
“We work on corners a lot,” Hauck said. “We’ve been doing really well lately getting people on the post, which really helps to just get it in, just tap it in.”
The lead grew to 3-0 with 2:26 remaining in the first half. Wissahickon goalie Meghan Reilly made two saves off of a penalty corner. She was laying almost on top of the ball and Merion Mercy kept digging. Knott eventually got control of the ball and put it in for a three-goal advantage.
Those saves were two of 23 Reilly made in the game. She stopped 10 shots in the first half and 13 in the second.
“She played really aggressive,” Wissahickon coach Lucy Gil said. “She was the only one that was really not afraid and just came out to play. We were very pleased with her. She’s played like that all season long. This is one of the seasons we’ve allowed the least amount of goals. We haven’t scored very many, but we have allowed very little, mostly due to her and my sweepers.”
The Trojans (11-7-1) came out firing in the second half. Sarah Campbell buried a rebound off of a penalty corner to get Wiss on the board with 26 minutes left in the game.
“We said there’s nothing to lose at this point so throw everything forward,” Gil said.
Wiss kept the energy up, but that’s as close as they’d get. Hauck scored her second goal of the game with 11:20 to play to give her side a 4-1 lead and essentially put the game out of reach.
“In the beginning of the second half (Wiss) really had a lot of momentum when they scored their first goal,” Hauck said, “but our defense is so strong so we were able to get it back up.”
Merion Mercy will face No. 1 Radnor in the second round Thursday.
Wissahickon’s season comes to an end with the loss.
“I had really high expectations in the beginning of the year,” Gil said. “There was all that terrible weather — we couldn’t even get on our turf — it was like 120 degrees on the turf. We just slowed down and had some really tough games right in the beginning. We almost started backwards and then we really started to play really well towards the end of the season. I’m only losing three seniors. I’m really pleased that next year we’re going to be OK.”
