Pennridge, Souderton followed path from October match to PIAA-4A title game

It’s not often two different teams can point to the same moment as the turning point in their respective seasons.

But after a long and rainy night on Oct. 11, in a game where they had played to a scoreless draw after 100 minutes of soccer and a half-hour lightning delay, the Pennridge and Souderton girls’ soccer teams left feeling pretty good about themselves. The path each team has cut since then would prove they were right on.

Saturday, Pennridge and Souderton will meet for the third time this season, this time at HersheyPark Stadium when they meet for the PIAA 4A state title at 4 p.m.

“We all say the second Pennridge game was our turning point,” Souderton senior midfielder and co-captain Campbell Power said. “We think it’s one of the best games we’ve played. We came out, we were really, really excited and ever since then, everyone’s been motivated. We saw how we can play and we keep saying we have a refusal to lose.”

Neither team won that night six weeks ago, neither scored but soccer is the type of game where a score can mask how a match played out. Like Souderton, Pennridge knew it had turned in a season-defining effort.

“We got more of a fighting mentality to battle through everything and whatever circumstances we’d see,” Rams senior midfielder and co-captain Ashley Groeber said. “I think that was our first game this season going into overtime and we all just battled. It helped us in the postseason, we battled back against Parkland and ended up winning that game.”

Since Oct. 11, Pennridge (21-3-1) has won 10 of its last 11 matches while Souderton (16-3-6) won nine out of its last 10. Both teams’ only loss in that span came to Conestoga, Pennridge in the District 1 semifinals and Souderton in the district title game.

Pennridge won the teams’ first match up on Sept. 17 when Lindsey DeHaven headed home a goal with 7:44 left for a 1-0 Rams win. The fact the teams have combined for one goal in 180 minutes of play this season is pretty emblematic of recent history between them.

“They’re our rival, every time we play them, everyone is ready for it,” Souderton senior midfielder and co-captain Sara Readinger said. “I think it just brings something out in both teams, we’re always ready to play.”

“Going into double overtime that game taught us how to fight back together as a team and stay more composed,” Pennridge senior co-captain Abby Groff, a forward, said. “Knowing there was the possibility of going into overtime in the postseason, we had to learn to fight and that game was the perfect opportunity for us to learn how to do that.”

Souderton’s last win against Pennridge came on Sept. 18 2015, a 1-0 Indians victory. Since then, the Rams have six wins and the teams have played to two draws, a 2-2 tie in 2016 and the 0-0 match earlier this fall. The three games in between were all 1-0 Pennridge wins with two coming in overtime.

“We’re good everywhere on the field, they’re good everywhere on the field,” Groeber said. “It’s a battle everywhere on the field. Our forwards against their defense, our midfield is challenging for every single ball against them and their forwards challenge our defenders. I think we’re equal in the sense we’re all battling for everything.”

The two teams took very different paths to the Oct. 11 meeting. Pennridge, which had earned the top seed in the District I playoffs then got bounced in the second round in a stunning upset to Quakertown last year, was determined to make it back to states.

Souderton, which had a new head coach in Lindsy Jones and had to replace most of last season’s top scorers and a few key players in other areas of the field, was not thinking about the state tournament early on.

“We had no idea this was coming,” Souderton senior goalkeeper Lindsey Pazdziorko said. “As the year went on, we got closer and started realizing we could do this.”

“Personally, I didn’t know what to expect, I mean, I didn’t expect this at all,” Power said. “The past few years it was one win or maybe two wins in the playoffs. We’ve never moved on to states since I started playing at the high school. I’m very, very happy we’re here and we’ve come so close to being state champs, it’s a great way to end this season.”

Even as Pennridge came flying out of the gate, scoring goals and not letting very many in, the Rams felt like they weren’t playing to their potential. Despite a pair of 1-0 losses to a good CB West team, they still found themselves atop the SOL Continental conference and in the mix for a top-four playoff seed and yet, the players wanted more.

“We’re a lot more connected as a team,” Pennridge senior co-captain and center back Sarah Williams said. “It’s our defense going to our midfield and our midfield going to the forwards or even defense to forwards. Playing center back, as the season’s gone on, I’ve seen our shape getting better and it’s helped us connect.”

“Postseason soccer is a completely different game,” Rams senior keeper Mary Kate Levush, a co-captain, said. “This is it. Everybody is going to give their all from both teams so it’s a matter of, not necessarily who wants it more but who ends up making the extra run, the extra tackle or the extra pass.”

Souderton on the other hand, had its start delayed by excessive heat then slogged through the opening weeks not so much as a collective team but three units — attack, midfield and defense — that sometimes played well together. The defense was usually good, but all it translated to was a lot of overtime games, the Indians played to six draws in the regular season with five of them scoreless.

“I think we all knew that after that game, everything changed,” Pazdziorko, a co-captain, said. “I think we could all feel it. We’ve brought a lot more intensity to the games. At the beginning of the season we would kind of go through the motions but now it’s a lot more intense and there’s a lot more energy.”

“We’ve all surprised ourselves with how well we’re connecting and the intensity coming from everybody,” Readinger said. “Everybody wants to win, there’s nobody who isn’t doing their job and more. It might have surprised us more, but now we’re playing as confident as any other team we’ve played.”

Both teams have scored in every game since their draw. Pennridge has scored 31 goals, allowing nine while Souderton has scored 15 and given up just five. They’ve both endured a shootout in the state tournament, both have an overtime win in the playoffs and have shown plenty of the determination they discovered in the rain that night six weeks ago.

It’s been particularly eye-opening for Souderton after being knocked out in the district quarterfinals last year against Owen J Roberts then losing a playback game.

“The season was over, there was no way we were coming back in the playback games and getting to states,” Power said. “There was no motivation to get farther, there were other reasons for that but this year, there’s not a single person who wants this season to end. Our last game is Saturday, but every person here wants to keep playing together.”

The Pennridge seniors were sophomores the last time the Rams made states but many of them also vividly remember the 2011 team that also advanced to the state title game.

“I remember Abby, Molly (Groff) and I were in the stands holding up posters of the Pennridge players when they were in playoffs that year,” Groeber said. “It’s weird now that the roles are reversed. We see all the little girls, the future Pennridge players, at our games. I talked to a couple of them and they said they were hoping to come to the title game and it just makes us feel really good that we have that kind of impact.”

“It feels amazing having the entire school, our peers and the whole community rallying around us because they know we can accomplish our goal of a state championship,” Levush added.

The one thing players from both teams agree on is the chances that Saturday’s match comes down to a single opportunity. Groff said she wouldn’t be surprised if the game goes extra time and nobody from either side is expecting a multi-goal victory.

“The school’s rival is North Penn, but we always think of Pennridge as our biggest rival in soccer,” Power said. “Because of how close every game is and how well we normally come out against them and how much we have to step up, that’s why we see them that way.”

“I knew we could see them again, but I didn’t think it would be in the state final,” Groff said. “I was expecting to see them in districts or if we’d won an early state game, but not both of us going all the way and playing them for the actual state championship.”

It’s the sixth straight year a Suburban One League team will play for a state title and it’s assured the SOL will win its first since CB West in 2014. Pennridge and Souderton join CB West (2014), CB East (2015) and CB South (2016) as SOL Continental conference representatives in the final in the past five years. Neshaminy, which won the 2013 state title and lost in last season’s final, is the other SOL team to reach Hershey in that span.

“It shows how good our conference is,” Groeber added. “It’s two teams from our conference playing for the state championship, that’s really impressive.”