Wissahickon shuts out New Hope-Solebury in matchup of SOL division leaders

LOWER GWYNEDD >> Caroline Kirkpatrick said the Wissahickon field hockey team has worked on making the most of situations even when they go a bit awry.

“I think this year we’ve worked a lot capitalizing,” the junior midfielder said. “Our corners last year were not the best so this year was play it out no matter what it is and we even do that in practice if the ball goes out of bounds.”

A ball that skipped out of the circle on a first-quarter penalty corner could have been the end of the Trojans scoring opportunity against visiting New Hope-Solebury.

Instead, Sophia Havrilla chased it down, cut back and sent it to Kirkpatrick, who slid the ball to the left post where Ella Hummel was to slot it into the cage for the opening goal in a contest between leaders of their respective Suburban One League divisions.

“I think our team has built a lot of trust,” Kirkpatrick said. “And we have chemistry at this point and we know where each other are so it wasn’t even a doubt in my mind that she’d be there for me.”

Wissahickon added a goal in each of the next two quarters and kept the Lions’ attack in check to earn a 3-0 victory Wednesday afternoon.

“I think we all played good,” Wissahickon senior midfielder Kate Lovensheimer said. “I think we all put trust in each other, we used a lot of the open passes instead of forcing it up one side. All of our corners were executed good and it was a good team win.”

Kirkpatrick followed her assist on the first goal by scoring in the second quarter while Kendall Crowley had the day’s final tally on a redirect in the third as the Trojans (11-1-0, 10-0-0 SOL Liberty) picked up their second straight win.

“I felt like everybody had their hand in it,” Wissahickon coach Lucy Gil said. “Everybody had their good effort like sometimes some kids play really well and others don’t but I thought overall we seemed really balanced today and that’s really nice to see as we head into the second part of the season. You want everybody to rise to the level of the other girls.

“I’m very pleased with today, I was very nervous cause I know New Hope is always going to put out a good, strong team so it was really nice. I thought their effort was really good.”

The Trojans began the season winning their first nine games – the last eight by shutout – but their run as an unbeaten ended last Friday when they went to North Penn and were handed a 7-1 defeat.

After an 11-0 win over Cheltenham Monday, a matchup with New Hope-Solebury – which sat in first place in the SOL Freedom – was a good test to see if Wissahickon could continue getting back on track.

“That was a big blow,” said Gil of the North Penn loss. “We knew it was coming, we had three girls injured so we knew that it was going to be a really, really tough game and on top of that we had injuries so coming back two of them were able to get back into the game. And we really got together the last couple of days and try to work out some of the stuff that went wrong.

“So this was a really nice contest to get someone really, really solid in here to give us a fight.”

Both teams play again Friday. New Hope-Solebury (8-2-1, 7-2-1 division) – which had won two straight and was unbeaten in its last three entering Wednesday – is home against Upper Dublin at 3:30 p.m. Wissahickon visits Springfield Montco at 5 p.m.

“I think we were upset with North Penn, we shook it off and we wanted this,” Kirkpatrick said. “We went out there and we capitalized quickly. I think we scored in almost every quarter and we didn’t let down our momentum at any point at the game so it was a fun game to play.”

The Trojans made it 1-0 at 8:26 in the first quarter after their second corner of the afternoon left the circle. Havrilla, however, hustled to retrieve the ball before finding Kirkpatrick, who sent a one-timed pass to the left post where Hummel proceeded to put it in the cage.

“We’re not great on the initials on corners but we do clean up rebounds or whatever off the defense and we do put a lot of pressure on them,” Gil said. “So I think that the more we do that the better it’s going to get just overall.”

Kirkpatrick doubled the lead in the next quarter, getting free space and ripping in a shot with 4:38 left before halftime off assist from fellow midfielder Lovensheimer.

“I’m very impressed with our midfield,” Gil said. “They do a ton of running cause this year we decided not to have a deep, deep defender and so we moved that person up to the top and it’s actually worked out for us so that we stop people at the 50-yard line instead of at, you know, in the circle.”

Wissahickon struck for its third goal less than four minutes after the break as Crowley got a stick on a ball from Havrilla to redirect it in at 11:10.

“I think just using the open passes, looking back, taking away passing lanes we practice and I think it worked out pretty well,” Lovensheimer said. “We were able to stop a lot of the ball coming out of their 16.”

The Trojans came close to tacking on a fourth in the final quarter but Brynne Miller’s strike on a corner was waved off at 5:38 while Lions goalkeeper Lydia Eastburn reached out to make a diving save to deny Riley Ball.