©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

GA, PC girls bow out in lacrosse playoffs
by TOM UTESCHER

Sophomore Heather Rittenhouse fired in four goals during last Friday’s semifinal game in the Girls Inter-Ac League tournament, but her Germantown Academy squad lost to eventual champion Agnes Irwin, 12-10. (Photo by Lene White)

By the end of the regular season in Girls Inter Ac lacrosse competition, Agnes Irwin and Episcopal Academy had emerged as the league co-champions for 2006.

The two Main Line teams reasserted their supremacy in the semifinals of the Inter-Ac postseason tournament late last week, as Episcopal defeated Penn Charter by a 10-5 count on Thursday, and Irwin took GA’s measure, 12-10, the following afternoon. In Saturday’s championship game, the Irwin Owls made up a big first-half deficit and defeated EA, 9-8.

In Thursday’s semifinal at Episcopal, the host Churchwomen held a 6-5 edge over Charter at halftime as they looked to avenge their only league loss of the regular season. This time around, the Quakers would not score at all after the intermission. EA struck quickly at the start of the second half, then the scoreboard stood still at 7-5 until late in the game.

“We just couldn’t put the ball in, although we had our opportunities,” said PC head coach Debbie White. “Eventually, the time got down to where we had to start doubling them to try and get the ball, and they found the open players and put in a couple of late goals.”

Junior Marghi Walters scored twice for the Quakers, who received single goals from Julia Bateman, Annie McKenna, and Steph Ragg. Callye Komlo paced Episcopal with a hat trick, and Ashley Aruffo and Kelsey Reinhard added two goals apiece.

“Episcopal clearly outplayed us when it counted,” White admitted.

Over at Agnes Irwin on Friday afternoon, GA’s Patriots suffered some defensive breakdowns early in the game.

“We gave up four goals where their girls were just wide open in front of our cage,” related GA mentor Ginny Hofmann, whose team trailed 7-4 at the intermission.

She observed, “After they got up 7-3, we had a stretch of 27 minutes, from the first half into the second, when we outscored them 6-1 to go ahead 9-8. Then they came right down off of the next two draws to score two goals in 14 seconds, and that just killed us.”

The Owls netted a 12th goal soon after that, and GA put the final point on the board with a little over five minutes remaining. Colleen Magarity and Heather Rittenhouse rang up four goals apiece for the Patriots, and Amanda Jones and Jenna Washabaugh each scored once. Allison Heffernan and Tori Johnston had hat tricks for Irwin, which got two goals apiece from Lexie Barker and Toby Eyre.

Episcopal had been responsible for the Owls’ lone league loss, and the Churchwomen were on they way towards hanging a second “L” on Irwin last Saturday morning, breaking out to a 6-0 lead. The Owls steadily climbed back into contention, though, closing the score up to 6-3 by halftime, and pulling even at 6-6 about seven minutes into the second period.

The teams were tied again at 7-all, then the Owls went up for good with goals by Kate Beers and Johnston coming in a 27-second span. Aruffo romped down off of the following draw to pull Episcopal within one, 9-8, with 6:46 to go, but here Irwin held the line to come away with the win.