PHILADELPHIA – Cold, physical, swift, and unblemished are just a few words to describe yesterday’s Inter-Ac match-up. Coming into the game both Springside Chestnut Hill and Penn Charter had pristine Inter-Ac records - but as the story goes, only one team could walk away as victors. 

With two unanswered goals scored against them, SCH called their first timeout of the game at the 19-minute mark. After the brief timeout, Penn Charter senior and Philly Sports Digest “Standout Athlete” award recipient, Hannah Fox, scored her first of four goals to make the score 3-0 with 12 minutes remaining. After 16-minutes ticked away off the game-clock, SCH’s Kianah Watson finally shot one in behind PC’s goalie Haley Hunt to put her team on the board, 3-1. 

Timeline:

- The 1:20 mark started with a goal from Blue Devil, Natalie Schwartz, making the score 4-2.

- Next came a goal from Fox to increase Penn Charter’s lead, 5-2.

- With 20-seconds remaining, Mikaela Watson scored for SCH, tightening the gap 5-3.

- About 7 seconds later, SCH’s Taylor Ferry ran down the field to score another goal for the Blue Devils, 5-4.

- Finally with .02 seconds left on the clock, Mikaela Watson added her second of four goals to tie the game, 5-5, leading into halftime.

“We had a really rough start, so to be able to pick up and fix our mistakes and have each other’s backs and realize that ‘this is what we need, go do it’ after our timeout was great,” said Springside Chestnut Hill’s coach Allison Thomas. “When they come together and look each other in the eyes, they know what to do. So that was really necessary to have us go into the second half with basically a 0-0 start again.” 

Unfortunately for the Blue Devils, the second half of the game started almost identical to the first half with Penn Charter scoring three back-to-back goals followed by a SCH timeout.

This time the Quakers did not stop and instead decided to put up three more unanswered goals to make the score 11-5.

The physical game continued with Kianah and Mikaela Watson literally picking each other up off the field after a collision and Esla Rall battling on the ground, diving for saves. At one point, SCH’s Mikaela Watson decided to take matters into her own hands. She sprinted down the field, untouched, and attacked the cage to score SCH’s first second-half goal with a little over 5 minutes remaining in the game to make the score 11-6.   

With the final minutes ticking off the clock, Penn Charter’s Courtney Cubbin added her third goal, and her teams’ final goal of the afternoon. SCH had one last second wind and Taylor Ferry and Mikaela Watson each found the back of the net to score two more goals with three minutes remaining - leading to a final score of PC 12 – SCH 8. 

With the win, Penn Charter’s league record remains unblemished. First year head coach Colleen Magarity explains that her teams’ win yesterday came down to listening to directions and trying to keep the ball away from SCH’s Mikaela Watson.

“The girls did a really good job listening to the game plan for today, which I was really impressed with. Especially in the beginning of the half, we were up early and we kinda let them (SCH) come back. So they really listened to everything all of the coaches had to say,” said Magarity. “Springside is a great team and Mikaela is a phenomenal player. So I wanted to try and get it out of her hands as much as possible and that starts with winning the draw. It’s really tough to play a team when their best player is also really good at the draw.”

The Blue Devils will not take this loss to heart, as the team will have a rematch with the Quakers on Friday, April 29th. Until then, head coach Allison Thomas explains that her team will improve from their faults and further capitalize on their strengths.  

“What went well for us today was that we got to see little spurts that we can score four goals within a short amount of time and that it’s totally doable when we believe in ourselves,” said Thomas. “Our communication and over overall team pay did not go so well. We weren’t connected as a team today and were unable to possess the ball. In preparing for Agnes Irwin we will clean up the things we need to clean up on defense, attack and in our transitions.” 

Looking Ahead: Tomorrow, Penn Charter will play at home vs. Notre Dame Academy and Springside Chestnut Hill will play away vs. Agnes Irwin. Both games are scheduled to start at 3:30 depending on the weather.