AJ Sports

November 4, 2009

Lady Lions’ season ends in overtime nail biter

By Tom Robinson
Go Lackawanna sports correspondent

TUNNEL HILL – After fighting to turn away Coughlin penalty corner attempts for much of the field hockey game, Lackawanna Trail Jr./Sr. high school appeared to be evening out play late in regulation Monday afternoon, Nov. 2.

Coughlin’s Alyssa Monaghan and Katie Gabriele needed just seconds of overtime to stop any momentum the Lady Lions may have been gaining.

Gabriele’s score 19 seconds into overtime lifted Coughlin to a 1-0 victory and sent the Crusaders into the District 2 Class AAA championship game.

“It was such a tough game,” Coughlin coach Colleen Wood said. “It was nice for someone to finally put one in.”

The loss ends Lackawanna Trail’s run as district champion. The Lady Lions went 8-6-1 in the Wyoming Valley Conference this season to earn the second seed and the semifinal home-field advantage.

The Crusaders planned to be aggressive in overtime, but with Lackawanna Trail possessing the first hit, it was surprising how quickly the chance came.

“We always try to score quick,” Gabriele said. “Whenever you get into overtime, you want to try to get it done quick.”

Monaghan made sure Gabriele had a shot. She stole a weak hit to start the overtime and passed to Gabriele, who took advantage of the extra space afforded in 7v7 overtimes to dribble through the middle of the Trail defense before scoring on a reverse-stick shot.

“I just kept saying, ‘keep going, keep going,’” Gabriele said. “We needed this.

“When I saw the goalie, I went for the corner and shot it there.”

The quick turn of events stunned Lackawanna Trail coach Sandy Spott, whose team had been unbeaten in overtime.

“I was shocked,” Spott said. “Right from the first pass, we made a mistake and that continued right down the field.”

Coughlin effectively took advantage of its big hits to get the ball deep into Lackawanna Trail’s end of the field.

“We did not play well,” Spott said. “We have a very hard time playing the long ball.

“We don’t play well against that style. We couldn’t adjust. We couldn’t get shots off.”

Coughlin did not get as many shots as Wood would have liked out of a 15-2 advantage in penalty corners.

The Crusaders had 10 penalty corners in the first half when Lackawanna Trail had none. Although they got four repeat chances out of their corners, the Crusaders only got off two shots in the 10 tries.

“We bobbled some,” Wood said, “but it was mostly their defense coming out so strong.”

Even when trapped in its own end, Lackawanna Trail stopped many of Coughlin’s chances before they became too dangerous.

“All game long, we had a ton of shots, but their goalie and their defense did such a nice job stopping everything we tried,” Wood said.

Megan Gavin, Aliza Furneaux and Alyssa Mallory formed the Lackawanna Trail defense. Molly Van Duzer made 10 saves.

After being outshot, 12-5, to that point, Lackawanna Trail had a 5-4 edge in shots over the final 10:28 of regulation.

“In the second half, it started to go better,” Spott said.

Vicky Van Fleet got off two straight shots with seven minutes left.

Coughlin goalie Stephanie Engle, who made eight saves, stopped Lacey Croasdale on Trail’s last shot with 1:10 left.

As was the case at the end of the first half, the clock ran out in regulation with Coughlin attempting a corner. After continuing play by earning two more attempts after time expired in the first half, Coughlin was stopped on the first attempt at the end of regulation, setting up overtime.

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