Seniors lead way as Abington tops Upper Moreland for SOL American lead

ABINGTON >> As far as Senior Night games go, there wasn’t much the Abington girls lacrosse team could have done better.

Aside from celebrating their 13 seniors, the Galloping Ghosts had a massive test in visiting Upper Moreland as the last two unbeaten teams in the SOL American met with first place on the line. Abington channeled its energy into a fast start and used a strong second half to keep the Golden Bears from sustaining any moment.

The Ghosts never trailed and ended up taking a 13-6 victory over Upper Moreland to take over sole possession of first place.

“We just had to work together,” Ghosts senior midfielder Kaley Ehnow said. “We had to work as a team and keep after the ground balls, stay composed, work with each other and have each other’s backs.”

Every senior started the game for Abington (12-2, 6-0 SOL American) with injured co-captains Becca Gable and Lauren Van Buren doing so in a ceremonial role and the field of fourth-year players got off to a great start. Senior Abby Thomas, who led the Ghosts with five goals, notched the first two goals of the game for her team.

Ehnow and senior Jamira Mashore then scored to put the Ghosts ahead 4-0 seven minutes into the game. In total, six different Abington players tallied at least one goal and the Ghosts were able to create a lot of second, third and even fourth looks in possession.

Going behind early made the task that much tougher for the Bears (11-3, 6-1 SOL American), who not only had to find a way back into the game but had to do it against an aggressive Ghosts defense.

“We were able to battle back and get the momentum shift going a little bit but we didn’t connect the way we had been the past month,” UM coach Kim Frantz said. “Part of that was their pressure on defense was great. You can’t take that away from them, they played great defense on us and our feeds were a little off.”

Abington’s defense played a strong game, forcing Upper Moreland shooters into a lot of tough shots and putting plenty of pressure on whichever Bear happened to have the ball. The Ghosts got tagged with a couple yellow cards for their efforts, but their constant pressure had an effect.

Outside of a three-goal run by UM late in the first half, the Bears never sustained much momentum offensively. Abington’s been a good defensive team all season and senior Sam Raymond, who had a caused turnover that helped lead to a goal, said it’s been a group effort.

“We did really well fronting their cutters and we could kind of telegraph what they were trying to do, it just seemed like we read it really well,” Raymond said. “We knew what they were going to do, but we had to step up and stop it.  We were talking through it, you never felt like you were alone and I always felt like I had someone there with me.”

Emma Meakim and Moira Olexa each scored two goals in the first half, with Olexa’s second cutting the Abington lead to 5-4 with 1:54 to go. The Ghosts not only buckled down, but got a crucial goal from sophomore Maddie Hinkle, who had a hat-trick as part of a strong two-way game, with 24 seconds left to carry the lead into halftime.

“We just said ‘no more,’” Raymond said. “We don’t like that feeling, so we found a way to get back to how we started and built that four-goal lead.”

Like she’d done in the first half, Thomas started the second with a spark when she clanged an eight-meter shot off the post and in. Abby Johnson and Grace Hinkle added goals to make it 9-4 before UM’s Cassidy Hirsch got one back when her attempt to get a ground ball ended up flicking the ball into the net.

Maddie Hinkle’s third goal stemmed any momentum before the Ghosts added maybe their best goal of the night. An errant pass by Upper Moreland turned into a ground ball for Ehnow and the Elon recruit ran almost the entire length of the field, making a last-second pass to Mashore for the finish with 7:45 left.

“We made them feel like we were running the show,” Ehnow said. “We wanted this on our Senior Night, it was a special night to begin with but this was a big win for us.”

Thomas added the last two goals of the game with her fifth coming off a terrific feed from Mashore behind the net.

“My team was working for me,” Thomas said. “I got a couple great assists from Jam. I couldn’t have done it without them. It’s such a close-knit group of girls and they’re all so talented, so it was great to share it with them.”

Frantz felt her defense still played a good game, noting that it did usually take Abington a couple chances to score. Defenders Kat Morrow and Bella Guarenghi were strong for the Bears and senior goalie Sarah Pickard, who has been terrific after coming up from JV last year, made some good saves.

The first message Frantz had for her players Wednesday was that the 50 minutes against Abington would make them a better team. UM, which plays at Pennridge on Friday, came into the game as the No. 2 team in the District I 2A rankings and Frantz added her players love watching film and using it to improve.

“We have four games left so we’re ready,” Frantz said. “We knew we were capable of this kind of season, my juniors are an outstanding group of players. Our goal coming in wasn’t necessarily to win the conference, although we started to see a light toward that, our goal was to go to states and we’re holding true to that.”

Abington now starts a daunting stretch of its schedule beginning with a home game Friday afternoon against Plymouth Whitemarsh. The Ghosts wrap up the regular season next week with a conference home game against Upper Dublin, a conference trip to Wissahickon and a home game with Radnor.

The pressure is now on them, but that’s what the Ghosts seniors wanted heading into crunch time of their last run together.

“Even if we go up against a good team, we have to go out there like it’s our game and play like we want it,” Thomas said. “It’s still game by game.”

ABINGTON 13, UPPER MORELAND 6
UPPER MORELAND 4 2 – 6
ABINGTON 6 7 – 13
Goals-Assists: A – Abby Thomas 5-0, Maddie Hinkle 3-0, Jamira Mashore 2-2, Kaley Ehnow 1-1, Grace Hinkle 1-0, Abby Johnson 1-0; UM – Emma Meakim 2-0, Moira Olexa 2-0, Cassidy Hirsch 1-0, Bryanna Gordon 1-0. Shots: A – 21, UM – 14. Saves: A – Ellie Hughes 8; UM – Sarah Pickard 8.