Plymouth Whitemarsh seniors complete undefeated league careers with win over Wissahickon
LOWER GWYNEDD >> Plymouth Whitemarsh seniors completed their four-year sweep of league games Monday night with a 2-1 Suburban One League Liberty Division win over Wissahickon at Wissahickon High School.
The Colonials finished their SOL Liberty schedule with a perfect 10-0 record after going 14-0 in SOL American Conference play in each of the 2017, 2018 and 2019 seasons.
“It’s so incredible,” PW senior Ava Borkowski said. “It’s what we’ve been working for these whole four years. The teams before us had that legacy, so it was our job to keep it going. Hopefully the younger girls can keep building upon us. It’s amazing. That was our goal throughout the season and everybody our freshman year – we didn’t want to lose once in Suburban One.”
The two wins over Wissahickon this year were among the toughest of the 52 victories the PW seniors have celebrated over the last four seasons. The first game two weeks ago was a 3-2 win in overtime.
Borkowski scored the game-winner in both meetings. While the first game ended in overtime, the University of North Carolina-bound senior caged the deciding goal in the third quarter Monday.
On a penalty corner in the final minute of the third, Hailey Copestick inserted the ball to Kaleigh Missimer, who relayed the ball to Carly McGee. McGee sent the ball towards the cage and Borkowski deflected it past the Wissahickon goalie.
“I was on pads and my job is for the deflection,” Borkowski said. “I just deflected it in. It was a pretty high deflection and there was a good chance the defender could stop it, but I guess it was powerful enough to go right over her stick.”
The score came on the third penalty corner in a row for the Colonials. The Trojans were able to keep the ball out of the cage the first two times, but not the third.
“You can’t give up three to four corners and not expect them to score,” Wiss coach Lucy Gil said. “We have to work on our circle defense a little bit, but I thought my girls played really well – hung with them, played hard, went after them, put pressure on every single ball. I was super proud.”
“We were tied and we wanted to keep possession, too,” Borkowski said. “It was a good way to run out the clock and we still have the ball. When we talked before the corner to decide what play we were going to do, we were like, ‘Alright we need to score here. Get this goal in and make a statement.’ We did that.”
The Trojans (8-3, 7-3 SOL Liberty) took a 1-0 lead quickly in the first quarter. Ella Hummel put her team on the board less than three minutes into the game.
The 1-0 advantage lasted through the rest of the first quarter before PW tied the game early in the second. A scramble in front of the Wiss net ended with Alexa DeLucca tying the game, 1-1, just 1:41 into the second quarter.
Both teams entered the game in good position for the District 1-3A playoffs a couple weeks before the postseason is set to begin. PW was ranked No. 4 and Wiss No. 8. The Trojans have a few non-league games on the schedule to stay sharp before the playoffs while PW is hoping to add some games.
“We added a few games,” Gil said. “We’re going to play Souderton, North Penn and Pennsbury. We just want to keep going right up til the end so we don’t get stale or anything.”
“We’re definitely hoping to get a few more games in,” Borkowski said. “We want to keep practicing and playing against good teams is just going to better our skills and better our teamwork with each other.”
