November 6, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Springside sticksters stumble at Baldwin
by TOM UTESCHER

While Notre Dame and Episcopal battled for Girls’ Inter-Ac field hockey supremacy last week, and while Germantown Academy and Penn Charter occupied the middle ground, Springside School, Baldwin, and Agnes Irwin continued to act as spoilers for one another in the lower reaches of the league.

The Springside Lions had beaten Baldwin handily, 3-0, at the beginning of October, but last Thursday on the Bears’ home ground all the scoring took place in the opening half and Baldwin held on for a 2-1 victory. The two goals by the hosts were sandwiched around one by Springside senior Lindsay Yang, giving Baldwin a league record of 2-8 (7-6-2 overall), while the Lions left with a mark of 2-8-1 in the league and 6-11-1 overall.

This completed a cycle in which Springside, Baldwin, and Irwin all split their games against one another, and their last few games pit them against the higher-ranked teams in the league. In the end, a 1-1 tie with Penn Charter back in late September may lift the Lions above the Bears and Owls in the final standings.

The previous Friday, Springside had battled host GA into overtime before losing, 1-0. After that, Lions’ coach Tara Maguire warned her charges not to take Baldwin lightly, but through much of last week’s contest, the Bears displayed a little more intensity than their hosts.

“I think we’re struggling to find our own identity and play our game, as opposed to reacting to the other team,” said Maguire, whose club has had some pitched battles with the league leaders, but then has fallen to some of the lesser lights.

After an early Lions’ penalty corner, Baldwin came back up the field for a sustained stretch of offense, scoring on the third of three corners. The hit from the endline actually got by the receiver, but the Bears propelled the ball back into the circle, and Brooke Simone got a shot past the Lions’ senior goalie, Sami Pulley (nine saves).

The first strike came with 22:52 remaining in the first period, and Springside answered at 20:38, when Yang’s shot from about six yards out on the left beat Alex Lucas (seven saves), the sophomore keeper for the Bears. Like the initial Baldwin goal, the Springside marker was the culmination of three successive corners.

With a dozen minutes to go, a Baldwin corner insertion traveled outside the circle once more, but again the Bears were able to keep the offensive sequence alive, and this led to a close-range goal from the right by freshman Nicole Wells.

With 11:54 still to go in the first half, the game’s final score was on the board, and Springside suffered another blow with 9:51 left. Senior captain and defensive mainstay Meg Cronin went down on the field, and on the sidelines she was diagnosed with a concussion.

“I hope she’s okay,” Maguire said. “That definitely hurt us, because Meg is a great leader and always gives 110 percent. We just don’t have that many people to bring off the bench.”

Trailing 2-1 at halftime, Springside spent more time on offense as the second period got underway. The Lions earned four corners in the first 15 minutes, and on the last one a drive by junior Colleen Caldwell from the top of the circle was deflected wide of the cage by one of her teammates.

With 8:36 remaining in the game, Maguire called Springside’s second time-out of the second half.

“The plan was to have everybody push up the field and go together,” she revealed, “but it doesn’t work if only some players do it and some don’t.”

Ultimately, the Bears were able to ride their 2-1 advantage to the final whistle.

“I told the girls we needed to fight harder,” Maguire said. “We were getting pushed off the ball, but that’s part of the game and we’ve got to respond. I just felt that we’re a lot stronger than what we were showing out there today.”