Undefeated Downingtown West rolls to victory at West Chester Henderson

West Chester >> A few minutes after Downingtown West’s 17-4 win at West Chester Henderson Tuesday evening to improve to 7-0, Whippet senior standout Corinne Bednarik reflected on her team’s early-season performance.
“We practice like we play; we’ve been practicing our butts off recently and it’s really showing, everyone’s chipping in,” said Bednarik, who won eight draw controls and scored two goals against Henderson. “We’re getting seven, eight different scorers a game. We’re really doing a good job effort-wise, we’re hustling to everything. It’s just showing on the field.”
The Whippets had seven different scorers Tuesday, with University of Cincinnati-bound senior Peyton Mottice and Quinnipiac-bound 12th-grader Feeney leading the way with five goals apiece. Mottice and Feeney combined for seven draw controls, and along with Bednarik’s excellence at the draw control were able to maintain some hot scoring streaks against Henderson (3-3).
“It’s really, really hard [to control the ball] if a team has two really solid girls at draw control who can dominate the ball like Downingtown West,” said West Chester Henderson head coach Lauren Mullen. “We knew that coming in, so we were just trying to get it away from them; but the draw control is like a ball magnet for them.”
The young Warriors, who start five freshmen, held their own with Downingtown West for the first seven minutes, battling to a 2-2 tie on goals from a couple of seniors, attack Olivia Pritchard and midfielder Emma Goodstein.
With Feeney and Mottice leading the way, the visitors then ran off four straight goals over the next 81 seconds to take a 6-2 lead. By halftime, the Whippets led 10-3 and Mottice and Feeney had combined for seven goals.
“It was a little sloppy today in the beginning, but I think we turned it around pretty quickly and did a nice job,” said Downingtown West head coach Brttney Constentino. “I was really pleased that we were able to dig ourselves out of a not-so-great beginning, to keep our heads, because I was not very happy in the beginning (laughs). We made more than 10 turnovers today, so this wasn’t our best game of the year – against Avon Grove earlier this season, we made only two.”
Bednarik, who will playing for Drexel University next spring, said, “I think our warmup [routine] at the beginning of the game was a little slow, but once the captains got together and we had a talk with each other, we picked it up, cleaned it up.”
Just after halftime, Downingtown West exploded for four goals in less than four minutes to take a 14-3 lead. The Whippets held the hosts to one second-half goal, and continued to maintain possession, as Mottice also collected four ground balls.
For Mullen, she saw Tuesday’s game against powerful Downingtown West as a learning experience for her young squad.
“We have a young team, we lost our top scorers to graduation last spring,” said Mullen. “Jordyn Bauer is playing for Penn, Lily Siskind is doing well at ODU and Peighton Bement is at Drexel. Our players this season are working so hard; but it’s about working smarter, too – making good decisions with the ball, having confidence with the ball and working it downfield.”

Downingtown West 17, West Chester Henderson 4
Downingtown West 10 7 – 17
West Chester Henderson 3 1 – 4
Downingtown West goals: Mottice 5, Feeney 5, Bednarik 2, DiGiorgio, Rochon, Lundmark 2, Tinson.
West Chester Henderson goals: Pritchard 2, Bixler, Goodstein.
Goalie saves: DW – Clemson 3, WCH – Taylor 9