Lady Aces Finish League Play With a Win

The Aces took to the road Tuesday night, and ended the Central League portion of their schedule with a 4-2 victory over the Springfield (Delco) Cougars.

Springfield (Delco) –not to be confused with Springfield (Montco), which is not only a completely different place, but one that is quite far away from Springfield (Delco)– came out of the gates strong and stifled the Ace attack for the first twenty minutes of play. The Aces persisted though, and at the twenty-three minute mark got on the scoreboard with a Julie Reiff goal off a Mora Petrie assist.

Neither offense got much traction for the next few series, and with the half winding down, it appeared that the Aces would have to settle for a 1-0 lead. Natalie Agoos evidently decided not to settle though, and she fed Reiff for her second goal of the game two minutes before the break.

Fighting complacency, Lower Merion came out of the half strong, pressuring the Cougar defense on every front, and eventually further padding their lead when Moira Petrie put a Julia Miller pass in the back of the net.

The Aces had a three goal lead, all the momentum on their side, and only thirty-four minutes left to play. What could go wrong?

A lot, as it turns out. Nine minutes later the Cougars managed to slide one passed goalie Rachel Newell and get on the board. Five minutes after that they got another one by her. Suddenly a three goal lead was down to one.

The drama didn't last long though. Not two minutes after the second Cougar goal, Patty Neckowicz took a pass from Newman, fired it passed the Cougar netminder, and pushed the Ace lead back to two.

Lower Merion clamped down defensively from there, and fifteen minutes later boarded the bus back to Ardmore with another check in the win column.

The staff was pleased with the win.

"This was our last league game," said Ace assistant Tara Shaw, "We knew we needed to come out and play hard, and that's what we did."

"We ended well. That's all you can ask for."