Souderton falls to Lower Dauphin in PIAA-3A opener

HERSHEY >> Lower Dauphin could hear her coming.

“As soon as she touched the ball, they screamed ‘that’s their best player,'” Indians coach Sue Casciato said of Courtney Kenah. “Courtney had another great game and they were definitely keying on her. They were aware.”

Big Red turned up the heat in the final 10 minutes but couldn’t find the equalizer. A tremendous run by Souderton came to an end out at Milton Hershey High School Tuesday night, as Lower Dauphin prevailed 1-0 in the first round of the PIAA-3A Tournament.

“It’s disappointing but it was still a good season,” Casciato said.

The Falcons will play in Saturday’s quarterfinals, against either Wilkes-Barre Area or Perkiomen Valley.

The only goal of the contest came less than a minute into the second half, when a shot by Paige Bitting somehow found its way through a maze of players, slowly trickling in to put Lower Dauphin on the board.

Souderton put on more pressure late but had trouble getting going early.

“We didn’t really show signs of life until the last 10 minutes,” Casciato said. “We needed to respect them but I think we were a little bit back on our heels, playing a little too much defense. They’re always a great team. We did come in pretty confident. We just didn’t do as much as we wanted to.

“We said ‘we need to be a first-half team next year because we’ve always been a second-half team this year.'”

Big Red, sixth in District One, kept battling against the District Three Champ.

“It was a good run but we came up against a good team,” Casciato said. “Hopefully next year, we can pick up a few more wins in districts so that we don’t have to play such a tough seed right out of the gate. This is the same game we had last year – same opponent, same location. And we know they’re very good.”

Lower Dauphin 1, Souderton 0
(3-1) Lower Dauphin 0 1 — 1
(1-6) Souderton Area 0 0 — 0
Second Half
LD-Paige Bitting, 29:23.