Loughead’s PK sends resilient Episcopal to PAISAA title

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EAST WHITELAND — Episcopal Academy senior Maddie Loughead took the slow walk at Immaculata’s Draper Walsh Stadium Wednesday night with a bandaged leg, a clear mind and fresh eyes.

The outside back sported a slight limp — “I tore my quad in the summer,” Loughead off-handedly explained. But with the gait of a hobbled gunslinger blowing into a frontier town, Loughead knew she had a job to do in the fifth round of the shootout.

Episcopal Academy’s Maddie Loughead celebrates after converting her penalty kick in the shootout to earn EA a 4-3 win over Baldwin in the Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association final at Immaculata University Wednesday. The match finished 3-3 after extra time. (Pete Bannan/Digital First Media)

“I really just tried to breathe as much as I could and not think about it,” Loughead said. “I practiced my PKs, so I just said, ‘do what you know how to do and don’t overthink it.’”

Loughead’s penalty kick settled a classic Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association final, Episcopal topping Baldwin, 4-3, in spot kicks after a scintillating affair finished 3-3.

The shootout contained enough drama to sustain many a recap, let alone the run of play that supplied two goals each from Baldwin’s Gia Vicari and EA’s Olivia Dirks.

Allie Bush was the hero of the shootout, though. The sophomore EA goalkeeper started it inauspiciously, with Vicari scoring and Bush getting a piece of Lauren Bracken’s kick but the ball sputtering over the line. When Lauren Cunningham sent her effort wide in the third round, EA stared at a 3-2 deficit.

“I said, ‘you’re fine, shake it off. Allie will get it for you,’” Loughead said of the conversation with her fellow defender. “And there she came with two big saves.”

Bush picked her teammate up, even though her opposite number, Simi Bleznak, stole the goalkeeping show in regulation. Bush stood tall in the fourth round, denying a Relly Ladner kick and allowing Dirks to even it up with enough pace for the effort to power past the touch of a Bleznak glove.

Next stepped midfielder Alex Loomis, and Bush read it correctly, diving to her right, so spot-on that she bodied the ball away with her legs.

“My strategy is usually guessing,” Bush said. “For this one, I saw their eyes. They were staring at the spot they were going to take the PK, so I just followed their eyes.”

“As a sophomore, she’s just stepped up so much this year,” Dirks said of Bush. “She acts older than she is, which is great. And she’s really loud in the back, so I knew when PKs came, she would be ready.”

That left Loughead as the 10th and final shooter to bash her kick into the side netting to Bleznak’s left.

All that drama transpired once the clock had stopped running. The 90 minutes were no slouch, either.

Episcopal took the advantage seven minutes in when Dirks scored, though the play was made by Anna Salvucci trapping a long free kick by Cunningham and playing Dirks through the lines.

Baldwin notched the next two tallies on a night when they scored off three set pieces. Bush charged off her line but could only flap at a corner kick in the 29th that fell onto the head of Vivienne Evans to nod home on the doorstep.

Episcopal Academy goalie Allie Bush makes a save on Baldwin’s Alex Loomis in the fifth round of penalty kicks in the Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association Championship at Immaculata University Wednesday evening. (Pete Bannan/Digital First Media)

Baldwin surged ahead three minutes past halftime. After three straight EA corner kicks, Vicari embarked on an end-to-end counter with Ladner and burst through the backline, leaving Ali McHugh no recourse but to chop her down from behind for a penalty kick and a yellow. Vicari slotted home the PK, giving Baldwin a 2-1 lead and opening the floodgates of chaos.

Dirks wouldn’t let the deficit stand, evening the score within two minutes. Her free kick from 24 yards out took a nick off the wall, but it sailed into the net. EA nudged ahead in the 54th, Salvucci taking two immaculate touches in the box to control a driven cross from Dirks and volleying home. That Salvucci and Dirks, the pair of high-scoring seniors, had their hands in each goal seems fitting in their final games.

“That’s how it usually happens,” Dirks said. “Whenever I score, she’ll assist me and whenever she scores, I assist her. She’s an awesome player, and I’ve been so lucky to play with her these past four years.”

A comfortable result wasn’t in the cards, thanks to Vicari, who skittered a free kick from 22 yards under the wall and into the far bottom corner in the 72nd, a worm-burner with purpose to knot it at 3.

As if that wasn’t enough, Episcopal got not one but three chances to win it in the final 30 seconds. But Bleznak produced fantastic saves rapid-fire, getting a hand to a Salvucci shot, her body in front of Salvucci’s follow while off her line and then retreating to nudge Bella Piselli’s effort wide.

“Just kind of do anything I can to keep the ball out of the net and get us to overtime,” Bleznak said. “There was only a few seconds left so I knew that if I made those saves, we would be headed into overtime and that’s where at that point we wanted to be.”

So on the back of all that, how exactly does one regain their composure for the extra session?

“We knew we had to do whatever it took to keep pushing and even if we were tired, just give a little more and keep pushing our way through,” Dirks said. “We came out every single time with a ton of intensity and energy, and we all were just so hyped to keep going.”

“You just have to stay focused on the game,” Bleznak said. “There’s a lot going on, but staying focused on what’s happening on the field and playing together and playing for each other.”

EA controlled overtime, Dirks flashing a sharp-angle shot wide, Cunningham lofting a free kick from 28 yards just over the bar and Bleznak making the only save, her seventh.

That set the stage for PKs. Among the thoughts that Loughead banished on the walk up were the past near-misses — the loss in last year’s final to Springside Chestnut Hill, the setback incurred as freshmen in the final to Germantown Academy, one that Loughead watched with a broken ankle.

There would be no repeating that anguish, she made sure.

“When we were freshmen, we wanted to win so badly for the seniors,” she said. “And seeing them lose the championship game freshman year kind of took it to heart, and we’ve been kind of with that since then. We made it to the semis sophomore year and last year we were in the finals again, so it was kind of like our time to finish what we started.”

Matthew De George

Matthew De George
Matthew De George is the Asst. Sports Editor and the lead Union writer for The Daily Times.

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