ABINGTON – Maddie Carr made sure the effort honing her penalty stroke was put to good use when the Plymouth Whitemarsh field hockey team earned one in its game with Abington tied 2-2 early in the fourth quarter.
“I thought I’d try something new,” the Colonials sophomore said. “It was working at practice so I thought it would work here.”
It did, as Carr slotted her shot into the cage with 11:15 remaining to give visiting PW its first lead, an edge the Colonials held onto to claim a 3-2 victory over the host Galloping Ghosts Wednesday afternoon in the Suburban One League Liberty Division opener for both sides.
“I think our first two games we definitely had strong competition and we started off with two losses,” Carr said. “So going into our league games we definitely really wanted to get a win there, try and win our league. That was our motivation for this game pretty much.”
Abington (1-1-0, 0-1-0 division) twice took the lead in the opening half, Skylar Beal putting the Ghosts up 1-0 with her strike at 6:35 in the first quarter while Brooke Dougherty scored in front with 2:59 left to make it 2-1 in the second quarter.
“I think we did a lot of good things today then we also have stuff to work on which is going to help us more in the future games,” Beal said. “I do have to give a credit to Brooke for putting that second goal in and my goal was, in my opinion, it was complete luck. I just hit it right in. But Brooke, when I passed it to her and she just tapped it.”
Freshman Gracie Kerns had the assist as Emily Dobrowolski pulled PW even 1-1 at 12:47 in the second quarter. Kerns then continued the strong start to her varsity career, collecting a goal for the third straight game as she scored just before halftime to make it 2-2.
“I just wanted to keep working towards it, keep getting better and hopefully get more goals,” Kerns said.
Plymouth Whitemarsh (1-2-0, 1-0-0) drew five corners in the third and while it could not convert on any, continued pressuring in the second half, eventually getting a penalty stroke in the fourth minute of the final quarter Carr connected on.
“Faked out to the left and then went right,” said Carr of her winning goal.
Both programs have new head coaches – Charise Halteman for the Colonials, Janine Larr for Abington – with each squad looking for improvement coming off District 1-3A tournament appearances.
Halteman is back at PW after coaching the team from 2016 to 2020, the Colonials capturing SOL conference/division titles in each of those years and reaching the district final in 2019 and 2020.
“I’ve already seen a lot of improvement from last year,” Carr said. “A lot has changed just positioning-wise, everything, I’ve already since a lot better ball movement. Just, I think overall everything’s just a step better than last year so I think we’ll definitely have the potential to go farther this year.
The Colonials, which began the season with consecutive 3-1 losses to Neshaminy and Boyertown before breaking through Wednesday, hosts Quakertown in an SOL Liberty contest 3:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Abington also has a division matchup 3:30 p.m. Tuesday as the Ghosts visit Hatboro-Horsham.
Beal gave Abington the 1-0 advantage at 6:35 in the first quarter as the senior hit a ball from the right side of the circle that ended up finding its way into the back of the cage.
“I tried passing it but I was not even putting my body towards it and it went right in,” Beal said.
PW made it 1-1 early in the second half as Kerns came into the circle and sent across a ball that reached Dobrowolski, who proceeded to put in a shot at 12:47.
“Last practice we worked really hard on our positioning,” Carr said. “Moving the ball up the field as a unit rather than separate defense and offense and I think that definitely helped us this game.”
The Ghosts regained the lead with 2:59 left in the quarter as they got a ball to the front of the cage and Dougherty knocked it in.
But Abington could not take the 2-1 edge into halftime, as Plymouth Whitemarsh knotted things back up after a corner, Kerns sliding a ball into the cage.
“I think we came out really strong today and that was one of our goals,” Kerns said. “And we really wanted to keep playing hard even when we were coming down goals and we wanted to keep pushing back to make sure we would get the win.”
