At tourney time, GA girls booters stepped up

by TOM UTESCHER

Although Germantown Academy captured the Girls Inter-Ac League title outright for the fourth straight year by virtue of a 7-0 regular-season record, there were some signs this fall that the Patriots might be mere mortals, after all. Their ledger included a modest 2-1 win over an Episcopal Academy team that wound up in the lower half of the league, and a 3-1 title-clincher over an up-and-coming Penn Charter squad on October 28.

The season would not end there, however. For the first time, the Girls Inter-Ac held a four-team tournament at the end of the regular-season campaign, and even though it played no factor in determining the league champion, the event clearly piqued the interest of the Patriots. Goals gushed into opponents' nets as GA clearly separated itself from the pack, rolling over Agnes Irwin in the semifinals, 7-1, and punishing Penn Charter in the final match, 8-0.

In a third meeting with Penn Charter, a match that was part of the annual GA-PC Day festivities, the Patriots defeated the Quakers 4-0 to finish with an overall record of 20-1. Their lone loss was a 4-1 setback against Downingtown West High School, which has topped the Southeastern PA rankings for most of the 2003 season.

"Our schedule was loaded," pointed out fifth-year coach Pat Gray, whose team knocked Strath Haven, Radnor, Downingtown East, and three Northern Division Catholic League teams prior to the start of the Inter-Ac campaign.

The squad featured a scoring standout in senior Beth Jensen, who set a girls' single-season school record with 37 goals, and a GA career record for both boys and girls, with 112 markers. Four-year starter Jess Dwinell anchored the defense, and Julia Coff, a three-year varsity veteran, drew the critical one-on-one marking assignments. In goal was sophomore Taylor Test, starting for a second year.

The Patriots' major graduation loss from 2002 was Christie Shaner, who is now playing at Notre Dame and who was the object of a national recruiting effort while at GA.

Instead of bemoaning the loss, Gray said "That's part of the fun of it seeing how each year's team develops its own personality. Our success this year has a lot to do with the leadership of our experienced seniors [Dwinell, Jensen, Becca Buckler, Ellen Cohn and Caitlin McKinney]."

In the semifinals of the inaugural Inter-Ac tournament, GA won by a greater margin over Irwin than in its 7-2 regular-season game with the Owls, but the Patriots took a little while to get going. Irwin launched the first serious shot of the match, a ball which missed the upper left corner about five minutes in.

Taking a pass from Liz O'Brien, Jensen beat a fullback in the box and got GA on the board with 13 minutes gone. With 15:48 on the clock, Kris Guynn also beat a defender one-on-one to make it a 2-0 game. GA took full control by adding another pair of points in the last six minutes of the half. Katie Morgan stuffed in the rebound of an outside shot by Heather Sherlock, and then on a penalty kick McKinney converted low on the left side for a 4-0 score at the intermission.

In the first minute of the second stanza, a corner kick from the right by O'Brien found McKinney in front of the cage, and her shot squeezed through the hand of Irwin goalie Whitney Hatch. Eight minutes later, the Patriots' Coff sent a pass to the 18 for Jensen, who drew Hatch out from the net and then slipped around her to make it 6-0.

Germantown's Test (four saves) seemed headed for a shutout, but the Owls managed to pluck the goose egg from their side of the scoreboard with just under 17 minutes remaining. Kristin Nottebohm carried the ball into the left side of the box and volleyed it across into the right side of the goal for Irwin. Morgan added GA's final goal - her second of the day - with just ten seconds remaining.

In the other semifinal, a pair of goals by sophomore Virginia McMunigal powered Penn Charter to a 2-0 win over third-seeded Baldwin School. Unfortunately for the Quakers, "close" is a word that will not figure in any discussion of the tournament final. The Patriots zoomed out to a 5-0 halftime lead and then coasted to their 8-0 victory.

Jensen's bravura performance netted her four goals and McKinney tacked on a pair. Single strikes by Guynn and O'Brien made up the rest of GA's total.

"Penn Charter didn't play us the way a lot of the league teams did," Gray remarked. "A lot of them did what Episcopal did, which was just to pack everybody back on defense and then maybe try to get upfield on a counter once in a while. Andy [Stackhouse, the PC coach] had them come out and play us straight up. You have to sort of admire them for that, but it did open things up more for our scorers, and we took advantage of it."