Fast start propels Downingtown West to win over Spring-Ford
DOWNINGTOWN >> Spring-Ford’s magical postseason run hit a bump in the road Tuesday night at Kottmeyer Stadium against second-seeded Downingtown West in the District 1, Class 3A semifinals. The Whippets (18-3) parlayed a big first period into a 4-1 victory over No. 18 Spring-Ford (14-9), dropping the Rams into the third place game.
With the win, the Whippets advance to Saturday’s District 1 championship game at Methacton, where they will square off against top-seeded Conestoga, a 4-1 winner over Great Valley Tuesday. Game time is slated for 6 pm.
“Spring-Ford is a tough team, and we’ve been watching their journey as they kept beating higher-seeded teams,” said West coach Courtney MacPherson. “They are a really fast team, so it was important to get off to our own fast start, and we did a great job of that. It’s going to be a great game Saturday. We’re all excited to get a re-match with Conestoga.”
The Whippets got on the board with an unassisted goal from Alyssa Freeman at the 9:16 mark. Barely 30-seconds later, the Whippet passing game clicked, with Ciara Margetich passing to Ashley Plzak, who sent it to the post where a waiting Carly Smith slipped in the easy score.
Alyssa Freeman struck again with 3:30 left in the period, with an assist from Kate Mahmud, and it was 3-0 before the first period ended.
“Our pregame ritual was on today,” said Freeman, who will be playing field hockey collegiately at American University. “We were all excited and ready to come out aggressively. We won districts when we were freshman, so we’ve all been working really hard to do it again as seniors.”
Not even 30 seconds into the second period, West bumped the lead to 4-0, this time with Plzak scoring with an assist to Alyssa Freeman.
“We wanted to come out strong and aggressively,” said Plzak, a Cornell commit. “We wanted to be able to get an early lead and just ride that momentum through the rest of the quarters.”
The Whippets did keep up the pressure, outshooting the Rams 19-7, and forced 10 penalty corners to just three for Spring-Ford.
But no more scores came, and Spring-Ford got on the board just before the half, scoring on a goal from Nina Scott, with an assist credited to Madison Friend.
“We made some adjustments, and played a pretty good second half,” said Rams’ coach Jenny Anderson. “But we just never really found our offensive rhythm.”
Spring-Ford is far from done, however. The Rams will play Great Valley in the third place game Friday, and have already earned a slot in the PIAA tournament starting next week.
“We’ve played some tough games, and lost close games to tough opponents, but learned a lot of valuable lessons,” said Anderson. “We were fortunate enough to learn those lessons early, and it’s been paying off so far in the postseason. We didn’t play the game we wanted to today, but we’ll get back at it tomorrow, and see what we can do in the third place game and states.”
Downingtown West 4, Spring-Ford 1
Spring-Ford 0 1 0 0 – 1
Downingtown West 3 1 0 0 — 4
Spring-Ford goal — Scott.
D West goals – A. Freeman (2), M. Freeman, Plzak.
Goalie Saves: Polinski (SF) 5; Chepow (DW) 4.
