LOWER GWYNEDD — Wissahickon whittled the Upper Dublin girls lacrosse team’s four-goal lead down to one in the opening minute of the fourth quarter. But the Cardinals stayed the course and found a way to stay undefeated Thursday night.
“We really emphasize to them don’t do anything outside of what you’re comfortable doing, don’t try to be a hero,” UD coach Dee Cross said. “Just play within what you can do, work with your teammates and for them.”
The Trojans collected the last two goals of the third before Maddy Radell’s tally with 11:06 remaining in regulation had the hosts’ deficit down to 8-7. Upper Dublin, however, responded with a run of its own, scoring the next four – two by freshman Bridget DiMartile – to push its lead to five and went on to claim a 12-8 SOL American Conference win.
“I think it’s easy to, when you get ahead a lot, kind of fall off, slip up and think oh the game is like a five-goal game we have it,” Upper Dublin senior Paige Dinkel said. “But I think our team, we didn’t see it as that, we kind of saw it as we need to keep scoring cause they can always come back. You saw it, we were up four goals at one time they came back, so I think we were all thinking we didn’t want this to happen again.”
Dinkel finished with a game-best six goals, the senior scoring the last three of the second quarter to give the Cardinals (9-0, 4-0 conference) a 6-4 halftime lead.
“If the offense is settled it’s easy to score because your teammates are helping you,” Dinkel said.
Upper Dublin pushed the margin to 8-4 in the third as Shannon Connaughton converted an eight-meter shot at 7:55 before Dinkel scored her fifth 13 seconds later.
Wissahickon (7-3-1, 3-2-0) finally snapped a scoring drought that went more than 14 minutes when Lila Marciniak ripped in a shot at 5:18. Emma Greenberg came from behind the net for a goal with 1:28 left in the third while the Trojans got within 8-7 when Radell scored off a Sophia Stehlik assist 54 seconds into the final quarter.
“We kind of talked about what we could do offensively, ball movement was important – we got a little stagnant there for a while,” Wissahickon coach Chuck Wurzbach said. “We were holding onto the ball too long and so we kind of talked about that and about the importance of keeping ball movement and finding the open cutter and that worked for a while for us.”
But DiMartile halted the Trojans’ three-goal run by scoring at 9:53 with Dinkel collecting her last goal of the night off a feed from DiMartile for a 10-7 UD lead with 8:29 to go.
The Cardinals added the next two goals on eight meters, Anna DiMartile connecting at 7:32 with Bridget DiMartile putting one in at 5:30 to extend UD’s advantage to 12-7
“It’s not a guarantee on an eight meter,” Cross said. “And they always look over to see should I shoot and should I shouldn’t, and they know don’t take it personally if we tell you not to cause it’s just part of the game, it’s part of the strategy. And they listen, they’re a great group to coach and they really work well together and they like each other and that makes all the difference.”
Stehlik scored with 4:49 left but Wissahickon could not pull any close as it lost its second straight.
“It’s a well-coached team, honestly, they make good decisions with the ball in their stick,” said Wurzbach of Upper Dublin. “They move it and they wait to find the right opportunity. You know, that’s impressive. We tried different things defensively and they just stayed true to their own game. So I got to give them credit for that.”
Bridget DiMartile added three goals while Anna DiMartile scored twice for the Cardinals, who hold the top spot in the District 1-3A rankings heading into a home non-league matchup against Harriton 3:30 p.m. Friday.
“It just shows that they’re learning each game,” Cross said. “They know all the girls on the other team, it is a rivalry which makes it fun but also very intense and I think both teams played great and we were just fortunate to be able to score at the end.”
Alexa McCabe’s three goals paced Wissahickon, who sit 12th in the 3A rankings. The Trojans visit Quakertown 5 p.m. Monday.
Back-to-back goals from McCabe – the second on an eight-meter shot – gave Wissahickon a 3-1 lead at 4:33 in the first quarter. Dinkel scored 27 seconds later while Bridget DiMartile’s successful eight-meter shot at 1:42 had the Cardinals even 3-3.
“I think that there were a good section there where they made some adjustments on the draw and it gave them more possessions than us,” Wurzbach said. “And this game is all about possessions, if you have more possessions than the other team a lot of times usually it bodes well for you by the time you get to the end of the game.”
McCabe put Wissahickon back up on an eight-meter shot at 7:51 in the second quarter but the Trojans did not score again until Marciniak’s tally at 5:18 in the third.
The last three goals of the first half came from Dinkel. She knotted things at four scoring off an eight-meter shot at 6:34 then gave Upper Dublin the lead for good with her tally at 5:16. Dinkel found the back of the net off a Bridget DiMartile assist with 8.5 seconds left before the break to put the Cards ahead 6-4.
Upper Dublin 12, Wissahickon 8
Upper Dublin 3 3 2 4 – 12
Wissahickon 3 1 2 2 – 8
Upper Dublin Goals: Paige Dinkel 6, Bridget DiMartile 3, Anna DiMartile 2, Shannon Connaughton.
Wissahickon Goals: Alexa McCabe 3, Sam Farno, Emma Greenberg, Lila Marciniak, Maddy Radell, Sophia Stehlik.
