September 20, 2007 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Mount sticksters edged by nation’s top team
by TOM UTESCHER

The Mount’s Nicole Shuster (foreground) and Julia Reinprecht (background, #7) both made goals against the Wyoming Seminary. Both young women above are seen here in a game against Sacred Heart. For more Mount field hockey photos visit www.chlocalphotos.com. (Photo by Jimmy J. Pack Jr.)

KINGSTON, PA - With a little over 15 minutes remaining in last Sunday’s field hockey match, a goal by junior Julie Reinprecht pulled visiting Mount St. Joseph Academy into a 2-2 tie with Wyoming Seminary, the team that had received the number one ranking in the United States this fall in the most prominent of the pre-season polls.

The MSJ Magic, who’d been placed sixth in that same survey, help out hope of a standoff, or perhaps even an upset of the Lady Blue Knights, but the Wilkes Barre-area team had the last word, winning 3-2 on the third goal of the day by Princeton-bound senior Kat Sharkey.

Sharkey’s hat trick, which came with 9:29 to go, helped fashion a 6-0 season record for “Sem,” which is the defending PIAA State Champion in  Class AA. The senior standout is just one of three All-Americans on the squad; the others are juniors Devon Gagliardi and Kelsey Kolojejchick.

For Mount St. Joe, the 2006 state runner-up in Class AAA, Sunday’s setback was the first of the season, lowering the Magic’s mark to 7-1.

“They were a very fast team and their mid[fielder]s played extremely well,” remarked Mount co-coach Lois Weber. “They came up with many of the 50/50 balls and I think that was the difference in the game. We see what we have to work on, and it’ll help us down the line.”

Karen Klassner, now in her 36th season as Sem’s sticks skipper, had seen five starters graduate from her 2006 squad and was happy to have the Knights’ new alignment tested by a team like the Mount.

“We knew coming in that they were a great team because a lot of our kids play with their kids on national teams, and we watched them last year

in the state championship game. They called us for the game, and we were happy to play them.”

Asked whether the Knights had been affected by their number one ranking, the veteran coach observed, “We just try to go out and play good field hockey; we don’t worry about the rankings too much. Our goal is to get out of our league and our district and back to States, and playing teams like [the Mount] helps you get there.”

Earlier last week, Mount St. Joe rolled over three Athletic Association of Catholic Academies opponents. In their only home game during this stretch, the Mounties galloped by Gwynedd Mercy on Wednesday, 8-0. Leading the way were Julie Reinprecht, with three goals and one assist, and junior classmate Jen Sabia, with two goals and an assist.

Senior goalie Kieran Sweeney made five saves in the contest, the same number she recorded the following day at Villa Maria. Long the Mount’s chief rival in the AACA and a team responsible for one of the Magic’s two losses in 2006, the Villa Hurricanes were brought to a standstill last Thursday as goals by Sabia, Katie Reinprecht, and junior Kelly Stefanowicz staked the visitors to a 3-0 halftime lead. In the second half, a 5-0 triumph was completed by two markers from Julie Reinprecht, the second assisted by sophomore Nicole Schuster.

On Saturday, if was off to Northeast Philly for a 12-0 ramble past Nazareth Academy as Sabia set the tone with a hat trick. In upstate Pennsylvania the next afternoon, the biggest adjustment Mount St. Joe had to make concerned speed; that of the Knights, and of the ball on their synthetic field. A number of times, MSJ players on the receiving end of a pass waited for the ball to arrive instead of moving to it, only to have their rivals breeze through the gap and abscond with the ball. Withstanding four Sem penalty corners at the dawn of the contest, the Mounties earned their first with ten minutes gone. On this and two subsequent corners, the visitors were jammed up by either Wyoming defenders or by sophomore goalie Sierra Segear (six saves). Nevertheless, the offensive thrust by the Magic showed that they were adjusting to the high level of play.

After Julie Reinprecht had one shot saved and sent another just wide to the left, Sem came up the field to earn its fifth corner. The insertion went high in the circle to Gagliardi, who drove the ball back down low to set up the tap-in by Sharkey with 14:38 to go in the first half.

Over the next few minutes the Magic came away empty from four consecutive corners. Later, they knotted the score on a transition sequence with 7:52 on the clock. Julie Reinprecht dribbled the ball down from midfield into the right side of the circle and drove it, and Schuster sneaked her stick through a pack of players in front of the cage to tip the ball in.

The stalemate endured for just 49 seconds, though. Charging right down to the MSJ circle and earning a corner, the Knights briskly inserted the ball high in the circle and Sharkey slammed it into the cage at the left post. The Mount defense seemed to be caught off-guard by the speed with which Sem initiated the play, and there were other instances when the Magic weren’t quite ready for the Knights’ quick restarts. The Mount’s sound tactical knowledge and refined stick skills kept them right in the game, which paused for halftime with the score still 2-1.

Over the initial nine minutes of the second period the Mount held possession much of the time, and generated six consecutive penalty corners. There were saves, defensive blocks, and near misses at the left post by MSJ’s Sabia and Carolyn Cabrey, but no goals. After Sem secured its first corner of the half, the Magic had a seventh opportunity. After Katie Reinprecht settled the ball high in the right side of the circle, and she passed it laterally to her sister Julie on the left. The younger Reinprecht pumped it past Segear to net a 2-2 tie with 15:22 remaining.

After a few more minutes ticked off the clock, the Knights took up lodgings in the Mount St. Joe circle and announced through their actions, “We’re not leaving without a goal.” Through four consecutive corners, the Mounties fought off the attack, but they could not bring the ball out to midfield as the Knights blocked up the clears and kept cycling the ball back inside. On a fifth corner, Sem switched the insertion from the left to the right endline, finding Sharkey up high on the near side for a punishing drive. The count went to 3-2 with 9:29 left to play.

Pressing for the tying goal in the closing minutes, the Magic almost got burned on a Wyoming counter, but Katie Reinprecht, giving up a 20-yard lead to the ballhandler, sprinted downfield and managed to block a shot at the other end.

Two more Mount corners and other chances for the visitors came and went, but Sem’s 3-2 lead held up till the end. The Knights had a dozen corners in the game and converted three of them into goals; only one of the Magic’s goals stemmed from their 16 corners. It’s been a continuing problem for the Magic against elite teams.

“We haven’t been on turf since we scrimmaged Emmaus [August 23],” MSJ’s Weber pointed out. “It would’ve been great if we could’ve practiced our corners on turf before coming out and trying them at this rate of speed.”

Co-coach Tina Reinprecht remarked, “I thought they [WS] did a great job of controlling the play up the middle. But if we’d capitalized on our corners, it could’ve been a 3-3 game or better. We’re proud of the way the kids played.”