Salisbury field hockey wasn’t satisfied by just reaching the Colonial League playoffs for the first time in over 20 years. So the Falcons locked up a spot in the league finals with a 2-0 upset of rival Southern Lehigh last Tuesday at Catasauqua’s Alumni Field.

The Lady Falcons came out aggressively against Southern Lehigh but were unable to get on the board until the first quarter approached its midway point.

After Spartan goalie Corinne Houck had turned away a couple of shots, it appeared that she again frustrated the Salisbury offense when she made a kick save to knock a shot away from the cage. Salisbury’s Maya Afif found herself in the right spot and was able to play the ball past Houck for the first goal of the game.

Less than four minutes later, the Falcons were back on the attack and were awarded their third corner of the period

Sophomore Katie Carbone found herself with the ball and as Houck appeared to go down for a save expecting a low shot. Carbone popped the shot over the goalie and into the back of the cage for a 2-0 Salisbury lead.

“We practice corners every day in practice,” said Carbone. “We are ready for anything to happen, so when the ball came across, I thought ‘this is exactly what we practice and we do those drills for this exact moment.’

“I just put it back up and it was so exhilarating for everyone and so exciting because it gave us a little bit of breathing room with a two-goal lead.”

Southern Lehigh seemed destined to score in the second quarter as the Spartans controlled play and kept pressure on goalie Falcon Caroline Gedney.

Late in the quarter, Southern Lehigh’s Leah Kramer had an opening for a tip-in at the corner of the cage but pushed the shot wide and to the outside as the game went to halftime with Salisbury up 2-0.

“We knew they would come out looking to get on the board early,” said Salisbury head coach Jane Brennan. “So we told our girls to be ready and keep up the intensity and they did that and played really well.”

Much of the third quarter was back-and-forth with both teams having opportunities to score. Both defenses rose to the occasion while Houck and Gedney both made big saves. Late in the quarter, Salisbury got the better of play, but the Falcons were unable to get anything into the goal and the quarter ended without either team scoring.

As the final 15 minutes played out, Salisbury was focused on defense and even though the Lady Spartans controlled much of the play they were unable to get anything past Gedney for her 11th shutout of the season and second straight in the postseason.

“I just really focused on communicating to the defense and making sure everyone was where they needed to be so we could hang onto the lead,” said Gedney. “Once we had the two-goal lead, we could relax a little, but we wanted to keep that breathing room that we had.”

Southern Lehigh, which had beaten Salisbury twice by scores of 1-0 and 2-0 during the regular season, was unable to take advantage of four fourth-quarter corners as the Falcon defense kept them off the board.

“We preached in practice that we had to know where their players were at all times and the defense had to know what was ahead of them and they did exactly what we practiced,” said Brennan. “I didn’t know we would be this good when the season started and it has been a long time since we had been to the playoffs and this is new to us. It’s my first experience at coaching in the postseason. I know we are all feeling very blessed right now.”