North Penn uses 2nd-half burst to beat Pennsbury, claim share of SOL National title
TOWAMENCIN >> Kiera Holt celebrated by taking a victory ride on an inflatable hobby horse.
“Our senior night is cowgirl theme,” North Penn girls lacrosse’s senior goalkeeper said. “So the horse, we kind of were like if we ended up winning it’s our senior night so we were riding it.”
The Knights rode off with a share of the Suburban One League National Conference title Wednesday night, scoring four times in a span of less than two minutes in the second half then denying visiting Pennsbury a goal the rest of the way to hold on for a 9-5 victory at Crawford Stadium.
“Honestly, this season was a win before we even walked out onto this field,” North Penn coach Heather Mellow said. “This is just a cherry on the top that we got to tie Pennsbury for the league title. But we won anyway cause it was such a great season from such an unexpected group of girls.
“Losing nine players and you’re playing with all brand new people basically and now you’ve put this together and they’ve come together as a team and playing awesome, it’s like you can’t ask much more than that as a coach.”
Kayla Stressman had a game-high four goals – three in the first half – while Quinn Rodoff recorded a hat trick as the Knights (12-4, 9-1 conference) earned a ninth win in a row to split the SOL National crown with the Falcons after taking the conference title outright last season.
“We’re definitely so excited,” said Holt, a Bloomsburg commit. “It was me, Kayla and Grace (Macnamara) that were coming back so it was us kind of taking charge and figuring out how can we succeed to that again. We brought together the team and we’ve definitely made it how we kind of wanted it to.”
Pennsbury (13-4, 9-1), which had already clinched a share of the conference championship with an overtime win over Pennridge Monday, took a 5-4 lead at 24:17 in the second half when Mia Popovich converted on an eight-meter shot.
But the Falcons could not put the ball into the net again as North Penn found more success on the draw, frustrated Pennsbury with its defensive pressure throughout the field and got a few key stops from Holt, who finished with six saves.
“I had girls that weren’t always playing all the time playing defense and I think we had them on their heels a little bit,” Mellow said. “And they were making mistakes and we were capitalizing on those mistakes and taking advantage and bringing it back down to our end.”
Popovich had two goals to pace Pennsbury, which was trying to secure a second outright SOL National title in three seasons but came away co-champs after having its nine-game winning streak snapped.
North Penn completes its regular season Friday hosting Lower Merion in a nonleague game at 5 p.m. The Knights sit ninth in the District 1-3A rankings while Pennsbury is 10th. The district tournament begins Tuesday.
“The whole team, they really just came up huge tonight and it was really exciting to see, it’s fun for the whole environment,” Mellow said. “This team that really never expected to make it this far and now we’re ranked 10th or 11th in the district and have had almost an undefeated (conference) season minus one loss in overtime to Council Rock South. So that’s a pretty good season right there.”
The Knights erased their one-goal deficit and took control by striking four times in 1:53 starting with Rodoff’s tying goal on an eight-meter shot at 21:44. Katie Harkins proceeded to put North Penn up for good 37 seconds later off an assist from Stressman.
“I think we got the draw, we were able to settle down on offense, go at the right time, find the right person,” said Stressman, a Bloomsburg commit. “And I feel we did calm down, even I felt very crazy in the beginning cause it’s our Senior Night and we could tie for the league championship so it’s a lot on this game. So I think we calmed down and we were like ‘OK we can do this.’”
Stressman extended the Knights’ lead to 7-5 with her fourth goal of the night at 20:19 off a Morgan Rodoff assist. Just 19 seconds later, Morgan Rodoff scored thanks to a Lauren Blanch assist to make it 8-5.
“That was just some smart playing offensively by my girls,” Mellow said. “It’s really about them getting comfortable and knowing where each other are right now and seeing each other and working on each other’s strengths.”
Up three, North Penn shifted to maintaining possession to run off large chunks of the clock and mostly succeeding with the strategy. Pennsbury still had a few opportunities in its attacking end but continued coming up empty.
“We definitely started communicating better,” said Holt of NP’s defense. “And we started figuring out more of their plays, on who we could kind of shut out that wouldn’t help get to goal as much as they were in the first half.”
With 40.4 seconds left, Quinn Rodoff completed her hat trick to put the Knights up four.
“Quinn came up huge today,” Mellow said. “She always has had a beautiful shot, she just hasn’t had as many opportunities but she came up huge today. And her sister, her sister came up huge too – she had a beautiful goal as well.”
Popovich tallied the opening goal at 20:35 in the first half before Quinn Rodoff and Stressman scored to give North Penn a 2-1 edge at 13:25.
Riley Borgman pulled Pennsbury even at 12:46 but Stressman put the Knights back ahead off an eight-meter shot at 5:31.
“Well “I had not the best first three shots, I was like OK I got to stop, like I can’t keep doing that, we’re not going to win if I keep doing that. So I just found the right time, I got the eight-meter shots.”
The Falcons answered with back-to-back goals, Liv Graebner collecting the equalizer while Grace Holmes struck to put the visitors up 4-3 with 4:04 left in the half.
Stressman, however, converted on an eight meter at 1:26 and the teams went into halftime even 4-4.
North Penn 9, Pennsbury 5
Pennsbury 4 1 – 5
North Penn 4 5 – 9
Pennsbury Goals: Mia Popovich 2; Riley Borgman; Grace Holmes, Liv Graebner.
North Penn: Kayla Stressman 4; Quinn Rodoff 3; Katie Harkins; Morgan Rodoff.
