Experience can be a wonderful thing. A lack of experience can be a scary thing. Fortunately for Northwestern (17-5-1) field hockey coach Lissa Opolsky, her inexperienced team stayed strong throughout the season while it gained the experience it needed to compete in the postseason.
Along the way, the team took some lumps, but in the end, the Tigers showed that the ‘no pain, no gain’ adage worked to their advantage when they knocked off number-two seed Wilson and advanced to the league finals. In districts Monday night, they took out number-three Moravian Academy 1-0 to not only advance to the district finals Thursday night at Whitehall, but also reserved a spot in states.
Before the win over the Lady Lions, the team played what Opolsky termed a “survive and advance” win over Palisades in the quarterfinals. In the 5-2 victory, Dani Lister led with two goals, while Carsyn Van Norman, Cara Thomas and Hannah Gober all scored in the game.
The win over Moravian (12-4-1) was a testament to how the team gained experience throughout the year. After a 4-1 loss to the Lady Lions during the regular season, Northwestern Lehigh showed a stronger defense and more patience in this matchup.
“That game was in the early part of the season, and we have just improved in general since then,” said Thomas. “Our passing game and our chemistry on the field is improved tremendously and that’s really what made the difference here tonight.”
Thomas, a sophomore, had one of those nights where she seemed destined to score a goal. She was in front of the net on a couple of corners, but Moravian goalkeeper Rosie John was able to swat the shots away.
Later, Thomas put a shot toward John, but it carried to the side of the goal. Early in the second quarter, Brinley Rex passed over to Thomas, who was advancing toward the goal and Thomas pushed the ball ahead as she sidestepped a defender to put a shot on goal that beat John for the first and only goal of the game.
“I just had the feeling that one of us was going to score pretty soon because we were getting chances, but it didn’t matter who,” said Thomas. “I think we all just had that feeling that it was coming.”
If Thomas had the offensive play of the night for the Lady Tigers, Ryleigh McGinley had the defensive stop of the game.
Looking to bounce back from Thomas’ goal, the Lady Warriors had a three-on-one advantage coming toward the cage. The one for Northwestern was McGinley, who was able to poke the ball away from Moravian Academy’s Moriah Mitchell and play it out of harm’s way.
“I was just telling myself to be patient and not come out on the play and allow her to get around me,” said McGinley. “I stayed back and was able to make a stop on the play. I always watch the ball because a lot of players will fake one way with their eyes and then go the other way.”
The Northwestern Lehigh defense continued to dominate play throughout the rest of the game, frustrating Moravian as it fought to work inside. Lions drives were thwarted by one of the defenders.
“Our ball movement tonight was what we know they are capable of, but we just haven’t seen it on a consistent basis, so we are happy with putting all that together,” said Opolsky. “Moravian made some runs here and there and we were able to limit our mistakes and come up with some big plays and be patient defensively.”
Opolsky mentioned Rex and Brooke Page as standouts defensively for Northwestern.
“This was absolutely one of the best games that we played this season and was right there with the Wilson game in the semifinals for the league,” said Opolsky. “We showed that we have the ability to have a passing game and work in small spaces and play with speed and that was key today.”
With Wilson downing Palmerton 2-1 in the other semifinal, the Lady Tigers will now have their third meeting of the season with the Warriors for the district championship. Northwestern lost to Wilson 4-3 early in the season before eliminating them from the Colonial League playoffs in a 3-2 game in the league semis. Both teams have spots waiting for them in the PIAA tournament.