Whitehall led their traditional season-ending field hockey clash with Northampton for almost 52 minutes, but the Konkrete Kids scored late in the fourth quarter to tie the game and Lauren Reznick capitalized on a breakaway during the first 7-on-7 overtime to lift the K-Kids to a 2-1 win over the Zephyrs.

The game could not have started out better for Whitehall as they took the opening possession, earned a corner 20 seconds into the game, and scored at the 14:10 mark when Kerigan Dreisbach put back the rebound after Northampton’s Brooke Saul made a defensive save.

The K-Kids did apply some pressure in the rest of the first quarter, but the second quarter was mostly played between the 25’s and score at the half held steady at 1-0.

There was no scoring in the third period, but a sustained attack by Whitehall almost provided an insurance goal when a blast on a corner rang off the post and ricocheted out of the circle with a minute to go in the quarter.

The Zephyrs were still clinging to a one-goal advantage when Northampton head coach Carrie Saul used her only timeout with 7:54 left in regulation. “We put pretty much everybody on offense. And it worked! We moved Brooke (Saul) from center back to attacking mid, we moved a couple of midfielders up to forward to make the push. We needed the equalizer, and it was very exciting when we got it,” explained Saul.

The payoff came at the 5:53 mark as the K-Kids took advantage of a corner and freshman Maddie Williamson converted, assisted by Lauren Reznick.

Overtime in field hockey is played 7-on-7 and provides the kind of end-to-end excitement that is often missing from the game in regulation. The speedy Brooke Saul, playing with a broken thumb, took advantage of the open space after corralling the ball on the defensive end.

She found Reznick open on the right side of the field and the junior broke in on the keeper and calmly put a shot into left side of the cage for sudden victory.

Reznick described the breakaway, “Honestly at the moment, I was thinking about trying to get a corner instead because there was one girl on me and another girl and then the goalie, basically a 3 v 1. I was able to pace the shot so that when the goalie was moving, I was able to slip it into the left post.”

Both teams had already qualified for EPCs which start Saturday. The official pairings and times were not available at press time, but it appears Northampton will get the 5 seed and play at Parkland while Whitehall will be the 7 seed and travel to Nazareth.

Liberty at Emmaus and Stroudsburg at Easton are the matchups of the other four qualifying schools. The semifinals are slated for Tuesday.