Rags to riches: Avon Grove beats Henderson for ICSHL Girls American Division title
Westtown – Following Avon Grove’s 8-3 win against West Chester Henderson in the ICSHL Girls American Division championship final Wednesday evening at the PNY Sports Arena, Red Devil senior captain Sophia Crossan reflected on her team’s rags-to-riches journey.
“My freshman year, we won zero games,” said a smiling Crossan, who lifted the championship trophy. “And now we’re here. When the final buzzer sounded tonight, I cried – I love these girls [teammates], they are my best friends, and they’re the reason we won this championship.”
Three years ago, Avon Grove posted an 0-16 record. The following season, the Red Devils won two games, then improved to 11-5 last year.
And now, Avon Grove (11-1) is the Girls American Division champion.
Avon Grove sophomore forward Abigail McCrystal, one of the team’s leading scorers, said, “What we found has been really effective for us is that we can’t ‘hero-play’ – we can’t play for ourselves. You have to use everybody, and use passing. When you only get to practice once a week, it can be hard to form those connections with teammates quickly, but we were able to do that.”
Crossan said, “The key for us is that we work together. We don’t skate the puck, we pass. We all have each other’s back.”
“When the game was over, I just wanted to go over and congratulate all of my teammates – they worked their butts off for this,” said McCrystal.
Avon Grove has a young squad, and in Wednesday’s championship final, freshman Skylar Campanile scored four goals, eighth-grader Lily Schindler dished out three assists and freshman goalie Ella Hydutsky recorded 30 saves.
While shots on goal were nearly even in Wednesday’s contest, Hydutsky stood tall in the net and was a key factor in the Red Devils’ win. One week ago, in Avon Grove’s 4-3 win against Henderson, Hydutsky earned 30 saves.
“Ella keeps us in every game, she’s absolutely fantastic,” said Avon Grove head coach Skip Crawford.
Wednesday’s contest pitted No. 2 seed Henderson (10-2 entering the game, with both losses against Avon Grove), who had scored 109 goals in 12 games, against the top seeded Red Devils, who had allowed only 22 goals in 11 contests). And the first period Wednesday was a more or less even contest, ending in a 0-0 tie.
Avon Grove had a mini-scoring explosion midway through the second period Wednesday, scoring three times in two minutes to take a 3-0 lead. At 5:12, Campanile broke the scoring ice with a power play goal from the right side, with an assist from Schindler.
McCrystal said, “I think that, once we got the first goal, we got into a mindset of motivation, we felt the energy – we felt we were closer to the title we wanted. It was the catalyst to a great game.”
Just 43 seconds after Campanile scored the game’s first goal, sophomore Maddie Boulware tallied from in front of the net to make it 2-0. At 7:18, Kalei Chowdhry fired one home from the right side, assisted by Schindler, and Avon Grove led 3-0.
West Chester Henderson’s Cassidy Yuan scored later in the period to make the score 3-1 at the end of the second stanza.
Early in the third period, Avon Grove had another mini-scoring explosion, tallying twice in 48 seconds to take a 5-1 lead. At 1:01, Campanile scored a power play goal with an assist from Schindler, then at 1:49 Boulware tallied her second goal of the night with an assist from Chowdhry.
Midway through the final period, Campanile and McCrystal scored unassisted goals to give Avon Grove a 7-1 lead with 7:15 left.
Campanile credited Avon Grove’s defense for setting up her goals.
“We have a really strong defense, and coaches tell us that everyone has to play defense,” said a smiling Campanile. “Some lanes opened up for me, and I just took them.”
West Chester Henderson kept battling, getting unassisted goals from Paige Muetterties and Megan Wackerman to cut Avon Grove’s lead to 7-3 with 1:18 left.
With only 42 seconds left, Campanile scored her fourth goal of the game with an assist from Morgan Yingling to make the final score 8-3.
“The key for us tonight was teamwork,” said Crawford. “Our entire team skated hard the entire game. Abby McCrystal did an excellent job shutting down Henderson’s top player, Maddie Boulware had a great game, Ella Hydutsky is always key for us, but really, it was the whole team that did it for us tonight –every one of our players.”
Crawford also praised the senior leadership of Crossan, who is headed to Villanova University next fall to play ice hockey and major in biology.
“She is such a leader for us, she has a great locker room presence,” said Crawford. “The kids all look up to her, she keeps them in line and they all just rally around her.”
Crawford praised his team’s resilience in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s been a trying year, but the kids are just happy to be able to play,” said Crawford.
Avon Grove now heads to the upcoming Flyers Cup (Girls Division) tournament. The Red Devils are seeded fourth, and will face No. 5 seed West Chester Rustin in their tourney opener April 12.
Although Henderson lost Wednesday’s championship final, the Warriors’ season is not over. Henderson, seeded third in upcoming the Flyers Cup (Girls Division) tournament, will face No. 6 seed West Chester East in its tourney opener April 12.
“The bounces didn’t go our way tonight, and Ella [Hydutsky] is a really strong goaltender with some experience behind her,” said Henderson head coach Sarah Hannan. “Our goaltender, who is only in her second year [as goalie] did a great job – she made a lot of amazing saves and she kept us in the game. By the third period, we were kind of tired. Three of our top players are quarantined [because of COVID] right now. We’re hoping that they’ll be available to us for the Flyers Cup, so we’ll see what happens. So far this season, I haven’t had a full bench for any game, so we’ll see if we can all these kids together at the same time at the same place – maybe [laughs].”
Avon Grove 8, West Chester Henderson 3
W.C. Henderson 0 1 2 – 3
Avon Grove 0 3 5 – 8
W.C. Henderson goals: Muetterties, Yaun, Wackerman.
Avon Grove goals: Campanile 4, Boulware 2, McCrystal, Chowdhry.
Goalie saves: WCH – Scebelo 23. AG – Hydutsky 30.
