LANSDALE – Lansdale Catholic’s Maura Johnson has a simple strategy when both she and the ball are in front of the cage.
“Just trying to jam it in and make my team happy,” she said.
Three times in Friday afternoon’s Philadelphia Catholic League field hockey first round matchup with visiting Conwell she did just that, Johnson collecting a second-half hat trick as the third-seeded Crusaders scored five times after the break to pull away for a 7-2 victory over No. 6 Eagles.
“I feel like we were just lazy in the first half and just not going after the ball,” Johnson said. “And we really just got our energy up in the second half to get to the ball.”
Anna Cusumano struck twice before halftime while Ella Ruffels and Lauren Brady added goals as LC advances to the PCL semifinals for the first time since 2019. The Crusaders lost in the first round to Bonner & Prendergast in each of the past two seasons, falling last year on penalty strokes.
“It’s a big deal to us,” Johnson said. “We’ve been wanting this, we’ve been working at it and working very hard at practice to get here.”
Lansdale Catholic faces No. 2 Archbishop Carroll – the two-time defending league champ – Wednesday with the winner moving on to the final Sunday, Oct. 29 at Neumann University.
“It kind of means that we can do it,” said Cusumano, a Catholic University commit. “Semifinals are coming up, we’re all excited, we all want to win and I do think we have a good chance and after PCLs comes districts and we just want to keep our momentum.”
Conwell-Egan – which lost 5-4 to LC Sept. 13 – grabbed a 2-1 lead on two Dakota Poland tallies in the second quarter but Cusumano tied the contest with 5:20 remaining in the half on a corner, ripping a shot in from the top right of the circle.
“Just my shot, I love it,” Cusumano said. “That’s like my corner. I got a goal in my backyard and I’m always just practicing that, back and forth hitting into that corner. When it does get into the corner it’s just like a perfect shot.”
Lansdale Catholic needed less than a minute into the third to take the lead – Cusumano sending a ball forward that Kate Fredrickson helped along in the circle with Ruffels eventually knocking it in to make it 3-2 Crusaders at 14:03.
“Our offense, especially Kate Fredrickson, she is always getting her stick on the ball and putting it right in,” Cusumano said. “And she’s been such a big impact on our team to help us score. And I think after that goal, they just got into their groove, our offense, and they kept going.”
Johnson’s first goal came in the final minute of the third on a corner, Fredrickson getting a ball across the cage to the left post where Johnson sent it in for a 4-2 advantage.
“Keep my feet towards the goal and my stick on the ground the entire time,” Johnson said. “So my stick can deflect into the goal when the ball is driven.”
Johnson recorded her second to give LC a 5-2 lead at 9:14 in the fourth as a Cusumano shot was saved by the goalkeeper but Johnson put in the rebound.
“She’s definitely another impact player on our team,” said Cusumano of Johnson. “Always putting the ball in the net for us, finishing it.”
Johnson capped off her hat trick by sending in a shot from the front of the cage with 3:17 remaining.
The Crusaders’ seventh goal came after a Cusumano hit bounced around the circle before Brady tapped it in at 1:49.
“I think it was honestly just our hustle made the difference,” Cusumano said. Well, we recognized that they started teaming up on me or double teaming so just moving the ball around quickly from our defense to our midfield was doing the job well.”
Cusumano gave Lansdale Catholic an early 1-0 edge after the Crusaders was given a penalty stroke, the senior lifting her shot into the lower left side of the cage at 11:45.
“I actually missed a stroke two games ago,” Cusumano said. “And we worked on them yesterday in practice but they’re always nervous, the 1-v-1 with the goalie and everything’s going through your head before you take it, like you can’t miss this, what if I miss this and they beat us by one. But putting that in, I think that really sparked it in the beginning, like OK let’s go we can win this game.”
A strong push by Conwell-Egan to start the second quarter paid dividends when Poland scored at 13:39 to pull the Eagles even. Poland put CEC up 2-1 by getting around a defender then delivering a shot into the cage at 7:11.
Cusumano struck for her second on a corner at 5:20 to make it 2-2. She almost notched a third just before the half, but her shot was ruled to have come outside the circle and deflected in by Conwell-Egan. Lansdale Catholic, however, took the lead for good just 53 seconds after intermission.
“We wanted to pick it up, we knew what we had to do,” Cusumano said. “We just started putting the ball in the net. It was nerve-racking, Conwell-Egan put up a great fight but I think we just went the extra mile.”
