NETHER PROVIDENCE — Seeding in a tournament like the District 1 Class 2A field can seem pretty meaningless.
Setting aside the district’s geography and its areas of relative strength, it allows little discretion for teams that feast on lower-quality opponents as opposed to those who struggle in leagues full of Class 3A schools. That goes beyond a 7-11 Strath Haven team hosting an 8-7 Delco Christian in Wednesday’s first round and instead plays to the dynamics down the road, of how to avoid the stronger teams whose seeds undersell just how states-worthy they may be.
Strath Haven hopes it is in that latter category this year.
“I think our coach has done a great job of just telling us, you know, like, we’re ranked eighth and we shouldn’t be eighth,” Haven’s Annie Dignazio said after an 18-2 win over the overmatched Knights. “There’s teams that are going to be ranked certain numbers that don’t deserve to be there or do deserve to be higher. And I think just going with the mindset that every single team is going to be a challenge, and every single team is going to be as good as the ones we faced in the Central League. And just going hard every game.”
The Panthers left no doubt Wednesday as to the difference a single seed can make. Delco Christian scored first, then not again until the fourth, by which point Haven had rested its starters and effectively stopped shooting. Haven collected 16 of 22 draws and had 30 of the game’s 36 shots.
Dignazio pumped home five first-quarter goals on the way to a 10-1 Panthers lead. She added five draw controls. Kate Fox had two goals and three assists to go with six draw controls. Megan Kelly paired two goals with three helpers. Maryella Gill scored a hat trick. Ava Yancey stopped two shots; younger sister Ellie Yancey denied two in the fourth.
Getting a fast start was paramount for Haven. It didn’t happen, thanks to a turnover created by Chloe Bryant that she sped up the field and dished to Lily Peters for the goal just 31 seconds in.
But Fox answered, after Haven had hit the post twice. Dignazio scored three times in four minutes, no one on DC able to keep up with her off the dodge, to make sure the game was stable.
“Our team tends to come out to a fast start, and I think that really gets our spirits up and gets our momentum going,” Dignazio said. “So I think that’s like the biggest thing we look for, is to come out, strike teams, especially if they don’t expect us to come out, and strike them when they’re not ready.”
Ella Irias scored from an eight-meter shot in the fourth for DC’s other goal. Addie Smith led the Knights with four draw controls. But the Knights had so little of the ball that they could neither generate nor sustain pressure.
That leaves Haven a win away from states, and a win away from a likely reunion with Bishop Shanahan. With four teams going to states, they’ll need to get past Upper Moreland (16-3), which eased into the second round Wednesday. Haven and Shanahan played in the District 1 final in 2021 and 2022, the Eagles winning both in 1-v-2 matchups. The Panthers rallied the first time around to reach the state final.
Last year, the teams met in the second round of districts as the four and five seeds. The winner went to states, and the loser went home, even if that Strath Haven team that lost felt it might’ve been worthy of a better matchup than the one delivered it by the seeds.
That’s life as a 2A school in the Central League, which produced three of the top six seeds in the 3A tournament. And it’s something that Dignazio hopes will do her team well this year.
“The Central League is just such a great league for lacrosse,” she said. “And I think going up against them all season, it’s taught us that we can hang with any team. I do think that does plays a lot into our mentality. Someone might be a No. 1 or a No. 2 seed, but they might not play who we’ve played.”