GLAX Ousted by North Penn in Districts

As the clouds covered the sky at the start of the girls lacrosse District One first round game at North Penn High School, the Spring-Ford girls lacrosse team were in a familiar place. Just a few weeks ago, the Rams defeated North Penn, 12-10 at Spring-Ford High School.

Unfortunately, things wouldn't look so familiar by the middle of the first half. Spring-Ford fell behind quick, giving up six goals after 18 minutes of play. The Maidens led 6-2 with 11:04 left in the first half, but something just clicked.

"I [told them] to go out there and play their game," said head coach Amy Short. "That this wasn't the way we were supposed to be playing this. That this is it. We don't want to go home with a loss today. We want to keep going and hopefully play in another game. Just go out and give it whatever you have. And they did."

And then the sun began to peak out from the dark clouds. Not a drop of "forecasted" rain came down on the field, but that light was metaphoric of what the Rams did next.

From that point until the end of the first half, the Rams went on a tear. Starting with a goal at 8:38 from junior Sasha Wozniak, the Rams didn't look back. Wozniak scored another to assist in a run in which Spring-Ford scored five unanswered goals to take the 7-6 lead with 11 seconds to go. Other contributors in that run included sophomore Kira Gensler, senior Shannon Stenson, and junior Leann Shaw, who had the go-ahead goal.

With 3 seconds to go in the half, North Penn scored on a fast break right after Shaw's score. The game was tied at the half.

North Penn wouldn't let the Rams have much to say about the second half.

"We just sort of fizzled out," said Short. "We couldn't get our offense moving and nothing would go in. We couldn't penetrate the eight. I'm not quite sure what was going on - if their heads deflated a little bit or what. They had a couple of really fast girls that were beating us and calls weren't going our way."

Spring-Ford kept up with the Maidens for the first 10 minutes of the second half. But, after two quick scores by North Penn with 15 minutes left to go, Spring-Ford had a hard time finding an answer.

"A lot of mistakes, a lot of throwing away passes, a lot of interceptions. Too many mistakes. We had too many mistakes in the last 15 minutes where we couldn't even get the ball down to the eight, because we were throwing the ball away. They increased their pressure on us and we dropped the ball. That was where we hurt ourselves."

North Penn won the game 16-9 and will go on to face fourth-seeded Harriton on Thursday. Maidens head coach Jami Behm paid homage to a tough opponent.

"We knew they were tough and definitely not a 20th seed in terms of their caliber of play," said Behm. "They lost five times this season and three games were to Boyertown. They took Henderson to overtime. We knew they were strong and we needed to play a complete game. We had opportunities in the first half that we didn't exactly capitalize on. The team played really well and we're definitely going to take some people by surprise."

As for Spring-Ford, their season is over and seniors Meghan Ellerbusch, Cassidy Novotny, Tracy Sloan, Stenson, Lex Versak and have effectively ended their high school careers.

"It's going to be hard to replace all of them, whether it's on the field or off the field," Short concluded. "We have natural leaders that may not have gotten the playing time, but they were there to support us on the bench. Between Cassidy in goal and Maddie working things out all over the field, we're going to feel the effect of those two more than anything. They all contributed a great deal this season."