Second-half sparks carry Wissahickon past Plymouth Whitemarsh

WHITEMARSH >> As his players lined up for a draw control, Wissahickon girls lacrosse coach Rob Intrieri had a message for them.

“We’re a second half team, right? So let’s get this one and keep it going.”

The Trojans didn’t play a terrible first half on Monday, but they found themselves down at the break to a host Plymouth Whitemarsh side showing a lot of guts playing without some key pieces. If Wissahickon could adjust, both offensively and defensively, the Trojans knew they could get right back in the game.

Wissahickon’s adjustments paid off as it rallied to top the Colonials 11-9 and remain unbeaten so far this season.

“We saw they were running the same kind of defense as Council Rock South and knowing we broke through that, it told us we could do it,” Wiss attacker Sophia Chiodo Ortiz, who scored four of her six goals in the second half, said. “If we could put together what worked in the last game, then it would work in this game. Draw controls were really essential.”

PW (2-6, 0-2 SOL American) was really good off the draw in the first half with Max Leszczynszki, who took the draws and flankers Lexi Petrakis and Kennedy Reardon often beating Wissahickon (8-0, 3-0 SOL American) to the ball. It let PW play its pace for most of the half, which was methodical and patient one offensively.

While Wissahickon scored first, taking the opening draw for a goal, the Colonials got the game slowed down and popped in the next five goals. Petrakis had three of them while Leszczynski scored once and assisted two more as PW had success shooting low.

“We have some varsity players injured, a couple players went away and we have young kids in there but if we possess the ball and do what we have to do, we could have won that game,” Colonials coach Ellen Reilly said. “They listened to the game plan. The less (Wissahickon) had the ball, the less they were going to score. When we have the ball, we can’t turn it over and we did.”

The Trojans found their way back into the game with a couple scrappy goals after Kelly Dickson scooped up and ground ball and scored and Ortiz recovered a ground ball off a rebounded save and scored. A turnover caused by Lauren Donofrio helped lead to another goal when Ortiz drew an eight-meter call and buried it, slicing the lead to 6-4.

PW won the next draw control, then held the ball for nearly two-and-a-half minutes before Leszczynski put on a couple moves and buried her second of the half with 1:07 left in the period for a 6-4 lead.

“They have speed and some experienced players, so with us having some inexperience, sometimes the kids get panicked about it so I was proud with the way we played,” Reilly said. “If we didn’t make as many turnovers, I think it would have been a different story.”

Wissahickon’s defensive unit picked up on some things in the first half that the Trojans used to their advantage the rest of the way. Defender Naomi Bram said the Trojans noticed a lot of the cutters PW was sending through the lane weren’t shooting much and most of their shots were coming from the midfielders outside the crease.

“We had to consider them as threats and keep our eyes on the people cutting,” Bram said. “They weren’t the ones trying to score, it was more coming from the people up top.”

Bram added the Trojans didn’t need to put any extra players up top because they did a good job of communicating on the back end defensively. Wiss put a couple different players as a shadow on Petrakis and Leszczynski, who did score twice in the second half, didn’t have much free space to work into either.

The hardest part defensively was staying disciplined and not trying to get overaggressive against PW’s patience.

“Any time there was a screen, we already had a girl going around it to pick them up,” Bram said. “It was a matter of warning them they had to step back and let the screen come through and just seeing ball and girl.”

Wiss did get the Colonials a little sped up after halftime and caused a number of turnovers that helped lead to goals. Brooke Berry deflected a pass that Sam Intrieri scooped up and fed to Ortiz for a goal to start the second half while Donofrio and midfielder Abby DeGroat had good defensive games for the Trojans.

Ortiz made a living weaving through the PW defense and drawing calls in the second half, one of them giving her an eight-meter she converted for a 6-6 tie. After PW went back up, the Wissahickon sophomore earned another eight-meter and put that away for her fourth goal of the day and a 7-7 tie.

The Trojans draw control unit of Intrieri, Dickson and Emma Baker ramped up its efforts after halftime, won the next draw after the tying goal and Intrieri made it count when she buried the go-ahead shot off an eight-meter with 12:23 left.

“They were camping out in the eight, which you can’t do and we were able to get calls for three seconds in the crease multiple times,” Ortiz said. “I saw they liked to collapse into the eight because they didn’t want to get beat so that’s when you’re able to get a shooting space call.”

Ortiz had a couple looks early in the half denied by PW’s goalie but the Wiss attacker just adjusted.

“You start realizing what works and what doesn’t, she was very tall so high shots weren’t going to work,” Ortiz said. “I adjusted that and shot to the corners where she couldn’t get. It felt like she was six-feet tall, it was tough to get around her up high.”

Donofrio picked off a PW pass with her team up one, which she was able to transition into attack and let Ortiz do the rest on another eight-meter, her sixth and final tally, for a 9-7 lead. PW cut it to one right after on a goal by Leszczynski, but DeGroat scored the next two for the Trojans to extend the lead.

“We’re a second half kind of a team,” Bram said. “We always hustle and try to keep plays alive so we know if we just try our best, we’ll come back in the end.”

WISSAHICKON 11, PLYMOUTH WHITEMARSH 9
WISSAHICKON 4 7 – 11
PLYMOUTH WHITEMARSH 6 3 – 9
Goals-Assists: W – Sophia Chiodo Ortiz 6-1, Abby DeGroat 2-0, Sam Intrieri 1-1, Kelly Dickson 1-0, Emma Baker 1-0; PW – Max Leszczynski 4-2, Lexi Petrakis 3-0, Callie Kolkka 1-0, Lilly Hanlon 1-0, Raquel Baskin 0-1.