October 18, 2007 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Early flurry propels GA Patriots past Penn Charter
by TOM UTESCHER

In Girls Inter-Ac field hockey action last Friday afternoon, a 5-2 victory by the host GA Patriots over Penn Charter brought both teams to the end of the first round of league games. Riled up after suffering their first league loss earlier in the week, the Pats romped out to a 4-0 lead, and although the Quakers recovered their poise later in the match, they weren’t able to mount a bona fide comeback.

Rebounding from Wednesday’s 1-0 setback at Notre Dame, defending Inter-Ac champ GA improved to 5-1 and rose to an overall record of 10-4 on Friday, but enters the second half of the league schedule in a three-way tie for first place with Notre Dame and Episcopal. Slipping to 2-3-1 (and 5-5-1 overall), Penn Charter still has the chance to reverse some earlier outcomes and produce a winning record.

GA junior forward Becky Dobson, who helped conquer the Quakers by scoring three goals and assisting on a fourth, was pleased with the way the Pats had bounced back from the disturbing defeat by the Irish.

“We didn’t play our best against Notre Dame, and we got a little negative when we got behind,” she related. “We had a talk and we focused on being positive today. We were really pumped up for this game. We hadn’t been shut out in 44 games, so we definitely wanted to put some in today.”

GA is more accustomed to be on the winning end of shutouts, thanks to the skills of senior goalkeeper Adrienne Ostroff, who has already made a commitment to play for the University of Virginia. Back in September, Ostroff had claimed a shutout and Dobson had scored the lone goal in Germantown’s 1-0 win over Episcopal. EA, in turn, defeated Notre Dame, helping create the logjam at the top of the league.

At the start of last Friday’s tilt, Penn Charter coach Natasha Pronga didn’t observe a great deal of intensity in her team, saying “I feel like we came out flat. We weren’t ready for any team, let alone GA. In the second half we decided, ‘Oh, we can play with them.’ We kept forcing the ball through the middle instead of working it to the outside, but more than any technical issue, our problem was a lack of effort, just not being aggressive going after the ball.”

For the first eight minutes the play was almost entirely in PC’s defensive half of the field. Charter’s Kim Slider, always a breakaway threat, had a dash down to the Patriots’ circle stopped by defender Emily Kunkel and GA counterattacked to score with 9:09 elapsed. Rachel Magerman, a particularly deft stickhandler who makes key connections in the GA midfield, struck a goalpost with a shot from the right side, and Dobson poked in the rebound.

Less than six minutes later Dobson struck again, finishing off a transition sequence down the right wing with a shot across to the left side of the goal. The Pats kept up the pressure, and from a crowd in front of the Quakers’ cage, junior Molly Andrews popped the ball in, making it 3-0 with 13:04 remaining in the first half.

“You could tell then that their morale went down a bit,” Andrews said.

With 1:20 to go, Dobson’s crossing pass from the right set up a tip-in by fellow 11th grader Abby Coombs near the left post. This time the Quakers responded. They charged left side of the GA circle and sophomore Kellie Ragg put them on the board, setting the score at 4-1 for halftime.

Charter played more vigorously in the second half, but a 1-1 exchange of points wasn’t enough to take Germantown out of the comfort zone.

Dobson completed her hat trick with 5:26 remaining, and then with 3:20 left PC’s second goal came on the heels of a corner play, with Ragg sending the ball to the goalmouth from the right side to find senior Alex Olsman in position to score at the far post. GA’s Ostroff and Quakers senior Sara Henley each finished with six saves in goal.