EAGLEVILLE — Defending a league title to open the 2024 season, Methacton’s field hockey team never cast doubt in one another after dropping the first Pioneer Athletic Conference games of the year back in September.
With the run the Warriors have been on lately, it’s easy to understand why this group kept the faith.
And now? It’s time to go win another one.
Adriana Hopple scored less than five minutes into the game and Lea DeWan added a third-quarter insurance tally as Methacton seized control early and never let go in Wednesday’s 2-0 Senior Night victory over Owen J. Roberts. With the victory, Methacton finished the regular season having won 13 of its final 15 games and did not lose another PAC game after the league-opening defeats to Spring-Ford and Boyertown on back-to-back days in early September. The team’s only other winless league tilt occurred on Oct. 1 in a 3-3 tie against Boyertown.
The Warriors are still waiting on playoff seeding and a first-round opponent in next week’s PAC playoffs at Upper Perkiomen, but this much is clear: they’re in the final four. If Boyertown loses to Upper Perk on Thursday, Methacton is the Liberty Division champ and top seed in one of Monday’s semifinals; if the Bears win their regular season finale, they get the top seed and the Warriors drop to the No. 3 spot to take on Frontier Division winner Phoenixville. Clinching the top spot would earn Methacton a Monday date with No. 4 Spring-Ford. The championship will be played on Wednesday night.
“We said after those two games (to start the year) that this isn’t how we wanted our season to go,” DeWan said. “We’re defending a title, and it’s important for us to show that it wasn’t just a last year thing. Every year we want to be competitive and work toward another title. That’s what motivates us; we’re so close, and we want to win and have that feeling again.”
It’d be hard to argue that anyone in the PAC is playing better hockey than Methacton heading into the postseason. Not only do the Warriors have at least a half dozen legitimate scoring threats up top operating as interchangeable parts (also Lizzy Mun, Carmela Maro, Ceci Rehak and Elena Weychert, to name a few), but the team also has a lockdown back line and goalie in junior Maddie McKenney (one save). That unit has allowed one goal or less in six of its last eight contests.
On Wednesday, it was Hopple who got her team on the board first on a goal assisted by Mun with 10:47 left in the opening quarter as Methacton immediately applied pressure inside the OJR circle. The Warriors (13-3-2 overall, 10-2-1 PAC) had plenty of chances thereafter, outshooting OJR 14-1 for the game, but didn’t put another one in the back of the net until DeWan found enough space in a crowded circle to slip one past Wildcats keeper Jazz Campbell (12 saves) off a broken corner play with 5:24 left in the third period.
“We are a very unselfish group that works for each other and does our jobs,” DeWan said. “We have a lot of trust in each other, and every single person on the field has a role and plays it. We all produce, so it’s not just one person taking care of the team.”
“We always try to score within the first two minutes and bring the intensity from the start,” added Hopple. “We like to pass up and down the field quickly, and once I got that first goal it gave us even more of a kickstart to our game.”
As for OJR (10-7-1, 7-5-1), the Wildcats still had a chance to clinch a playoff spot on Wednesday with a win and a Spring-Ford loss on Thursday, but it wasn’t in the cards. The Warriors controlled the pace of play to the point where OJR was unable to generate much outside of one or two pushes toward the goal. Methacton also had an 11-4 advantage on penalty corners.
The fact that the Wildcats made it to the PAC postseason doorstep is impressive in its own right considering they had their own struggles earlier on. OJR started 1-5 overall and 0-4 in league play, but after a 2-1 loss to Methacton on Sept. 16, the Wildcats went 8-0-1 in their next nine, an impressive feat of resiliency.
“Tonight we got away from what had helped us (recently), which is team hockey,” OJR head coach Amy Hoffman said. “Methacton deserves a lot of credit – they were super aggressive the whole game and are fast and skilled. Their own level of play was a bit higher than ours.”
Still, all is not lost for the Wildcats. The midseason resurgence vaulted OJR up the District 1-3A rankings, and even after the Methacton loss the team was still ranked 17th on Thursday morning (the top 24 teams qualify for districts). The mini-break will come at a good time for OJR, Hoffman said, as her team is a little banged up after a long and arduous season.
“They have what it takes to rally,” she said. “Some extra time to recover and rehab will ultimately do us good once we start district play. This team started out not so strong, regained its focus and had a really nice stretch with a lot of wins. We’ll continue to learn from our mistakes and make some details a little neater.”
Methacton is also in a favorable position for districts, ranked No. 6 in D1-3A on Thursday morning. In fact, if the season ended right now, all six teams in the Liberty Division would qualify for districts. But first thing’s first: it was a hard division to win for either Methacton and Boyertown, and the Warriors are proud of how hard they have come.
Whether they win the Liberty or not, the Warriors know a target is firmly planted on their backs as defending champs, and that’s just fine with them.
“Every team is going to come out with high intensity,” Hopple said. “We always say that we need to exceed that intensity. If we continue to do that, we’ll continue to put balls in the back of the net.”
“We’re defending a title, so every game we step out on the field we’re putting forth our best effort because every game is tough,” added DeWan. “Tonight, we capitalized on our opportunities.”
Originally Published:
