Subscribe
Community
Pax to Cavs: Not this time
Field hockey atones for regular season loss; head to 2A South title game
Friday, Nov. 6, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by MICHAEL REID
Calvert's Kacie Collins, right, swoops in on Patuxent goalie Becca Portillo and defender Michelle Denny in the first half.
|
E-Mail This Article
Patuxent fell to county rival Calvert earlier this season.
Wednesday, the Panthers won Round 2 with a 4-1 win over the visiting Cavaliers in the Class 2A South regional semifinals.
The second-seeded Panthers (13-2) faced Glenelg on Thursday in the championship game. That ended too late for inclusion this edition. The top-seeded Gladiators earned their place in the title game with a 6-0 win over Marriotts Ridge on Tuesday.
"I'm not going to say I wasn't worried. Calvert played a great game tonight, they really did," Patuxent head coach Lynn Powell said. "It's a lot of relief right now on the sidelines. The sighs of relief are huge."
"It's real, real exciting," said Patuxent senior Claire Ganoe, "and it's just good to win and redeem yourself after Calvert won [earlier in the season]."
Patuxent senior Lauren Bartley, who scored the eventual game-winning goal, added: "I'm just so excited out of my mind right now, I don't know how to explain it."
Calvert head coach Megan Williams added: "We knew this would be a tough game, it's always tough to try to go and beat a team two times on their home field in a season. I was pleased with our first half and how we immediately responded when they scored. Patuxent has a powerful forward line, though, and once they have a hold of something, they have a hold of it."
The third-seeded Cavaliers (11-2-1), who had defeated Oakland Mills in the quarterfinals, stunned the Panthers with a 1-0 victory on Sept. 29.
"After the loss to Calvert we came back and played really hard against Leonardtown," Powell said, referring to a 3-0 win over the Raiders the following day. "[My players] really weren't satisfied so having the chance to make the statement that, ‘We are just as good as you' helped them come out on top [today]. I think [the loss] was a blessing in disguise, a bad disguise."
"We had a winning streak and they're our rivals," Ganoe said, "so it did bother us, but I think [the loss] made us better."
That game was hard-fought and this one was too.
The two teams were scoreless before Taylor Courtney opened the scoring 8 minutes 26 seconds into the second half to snap a lengthy scoreless drought against their county rivals.
But Calvert answered right back when Amanda Reardon tapped in a rebound less than two minutes later.
"I knew after the first goal went in that my girls would be a little bit more relaxed," Powell said. "Unfortunately, they came off the field a little too hyped up so Calvert answered. It was a good lesson, but the reason they were so hyped [from scoring first] was because it was a goal from the beginning of last game [against Calvert] that needed to fall, so it was 98 [minutes] minutes worth of [pent up] fire. The 38 shots on goal last game was just needling at them."
"We kept telling ourselves that the game wasn't won," Ganoe said, "but I guess we had an overconfident mindset and it got to us."
Bartley added: "It put pressure on us, but we knew we needed to come back and keep up the intensity and just keep going. We weren't going to let that one goal bring us down. We knew we had to keep going."
And it was Bartley who kept the Panthers going in the postseason when the ball squirted out to her at the side of the cage and she pounded it into the cage at 13:31.
"I kind of just saw it come to me and I was going to get it and just hit it right in. I just went crazy after that."
"Talk about learning something quickly," Powell said. "Because after we answered and made it 2-1 they called a timeout and my girls were like, ‘Don't talk, don't yell, act like you've been there.' They were all trying to calm down."
Patuxent's Lauren Schumacher and Catherine Denny added insurance goals shortly afterward to punch the Panthers' ticket to the regional championship game.
"No [more] postseason play isn't going to take away from the season that these girls have had," Williams said. "They've proven to me, to themselves, and to their peers that a little hope and a lot of hard work will pay off. I'm extremely proud of them."
Results
Patuxent 4, Calvert 1
Calvert 0 1
Patuxent 0 4
Goals: Calvert (Reardon); Patuxent (Courtney, Bartley,
Schumacher, C. Denny)
Saves: Calvert (Thorn 11); Patuxent (Portillo 4)
View more photos
