For Upper Moreland, it seems like every “big game”, we have players either injured or sick. Tonight, we came with a full squad for what could be our last regular season game. But in our warmups, captain Addi Gans got hit hard in the ankle, got taped up, started the game, but had to come out almost immediately. Addi loves this team so much that we tried to put her in a couple times, since she was devastated to not be able to play her best tonight.
BUT the team knew, we had to win this game to have a chance at playoffs.
In the game, Lower Moreland scored first, #7, Torgan is so fast, we did our best to contain her all night. She is a dynamic player.
We came back and scored with 13:11 left in the 2nd quarter.
We have been working on corners more in the last few practices and it paid off tonight. Olivia Torres is so smart in the game, but especially in the circle, Liv as our Striker knows how to read the defense and distribute the ball on corners. The first goal came when Ella Gould inserted to Liv at Striker and Olivia passed to Bridget Hess and she took a rocket shot to score. Bridget was able to take the free shot to goal because the other players on the corner were doing their job to occupy defenders.
Our passing and the “give and goes” really worked tonight with Ella Gould, Melissa Torpey, Taylor Pagano and MJ Reilly. Even though they were not given credit for the scoring, they maintained possession to get it down in the circle to get the corner!
The 2nd goal was on another corner, in the 3rd quarter. With Olivia Torres playing smart again, dodging the flyer, then hitting the boards for what turned out to be the winning score!
After that our defense took over and held tight! Senior Abby Kelly was locked in on the right side, while Lyla Soleau and Reese Purcell covered the middle. In the 4th quarter, Harper Richmond after playing multiple positions, came in off the bench and played awesome defense. Bridget Hess was all over the field! With the lead, we tried to play more defensively and Bridget was a key in this strategy as she locked down at left midfield.
I wanted to give the game ball to the entire defense for the 2nd half play, but Hannah Gardner earned it for her outstanding defensive play as Lower Moreland brought the ball down multiple times on their right side. We started marking #7, but Lo Mo had several players trying to feed her the ball and Hannah kept them to the outside and contested every pass across.
In the 4th quarter, we had a player get a yellow card and played short for 5 minutes. That was intense!! Captain Tierney Hogan did not let down under the pressure having 12 saves in just the 4th quarter, and 33 saves overall. She also did a great job stepping to the ball and making hard clears out of her circle all the way to our forwards, so that was a game changer.
We knew we had to win this one to be considered for playoffs.
We got all 6 seniors back out on the field for the end of the game to walk off with the win!
Olivia Torres commented “ We really played our best tonight. Our chemistry was insane when we were on the field. We came out with a positive attitude and ended up winning a very hard game. It really showed the younger players that you can do anything if you just put your mind into it."
Not sure if this win will put us into playoffs, but we ended the regular season 9 - 8 - 1 and we are certainly proud of the record being a smaller school with a tough schedule.