by Tom Utescher

Last Tuesday Mount St. Joseph’s field hockey team travelled out to Chocolatetown USA (Hershey, PA), but it was Cougars, not Kisses, that were on the Mounties’ minds.

Starting out in the PIAA Class 2A state tournament as the number three seed out of District 1, the Magic were matched up with the Cougars of Palmyra High School. The Cougars were the runner-up team in Central Pennsylvania’s District 3, having fallen in the championship game to Donegal High School, the state champion in 2016 and a tournament semifinalist last year.

The Palmyra squad only had to make a five-minute trip to reach last Tuesday’s game site at The Milton Hershey School, bringing with it an overall record of 16-5-1. After the Cougars and Magic battled to a 0-0 tie in the first half, what looked to be a Mount St. Joseph goal early in the second period was nixed by a stick violation.

Instead, with 15:35 remaining, Palmyra would score the only goal of the evening, holding off the Magic in the closing stages to advance to a quarterfinal match against Villa Maria Academy, a 9-0 winner over Berks Catholic in its tourney opener. Villa, of course, is the Mount’s traditional Athletic Association of Catholic Academies rival. Winners of the 2018 District 1 tournament, the Hurricanes are also the defending state champions in Class 2A.

The Mount wrapped up the season with an overall record of 17-6, having finished as runner-up in the AACA. Five of the Mount’s losses were in matches decided by a single goal. The sixth, a 4-1 setback against the Academy of Notre Dame, occurred one day after an emotionally and physically grueling 5-4 overtime loss to Villa Maria.

“I’m happy with their performance,” said first-year head coach Sue Wentzel. “They were solid all year long and they went out strong.”

Mount St. Joseph will be graduating six players who have had a major impact on the program.

“They make field hockey a priority, but they’re also well-mannered respectful kids,” observed Wentzel. “They did everything we asked, and because they’re so knowledgeable, I tried to give them a lot of ownership and accountability on the field. I could rely on my seniors.”

Tri-captains Mari Kniezewski, Julianna Kratz and Ellie Maransky will be playing collegiate hockey for Colgate, Fairfield, and Georgetown, respectively.

The goalies are Maeve McCarthy, who’s continuing on to Catholic University, and Claire Maguire, who’ll guard the cage at the University of Scranton. Positioned in front of the keepers was the sixth senior, defender Maddie Niekelski. Although she came on strong during the 2018 campaign, Niekelski is strictly focusing on academics, rather than athletics, during the college selection process.

The ball rolls past the boot of Mount senior goalie Maeve McCarthy (center), but sophomore defender Katie McCallum (second from left) is going to block it with her stick. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

The Mounties’ opponent in last Tuesday’s state tournament game, Palmyra, plays a rigorous schedule in the regular season. The school is a member of the Mid-Penn Conference Keystone Division, along with strong Class 3A schools such as Lower Dauphin and Hershey High School.

However, it was the Magic who were on the attack in the early minutes following the 5:00 PM twilight start. Among the leaders of these charges were Kratz, the Magic’s speedy scoring leader, and sophomores Kennedy Cliggett, Megan Maransky (Ellie’s sister) and Meghan McGinley. Along the sideline, McGinley would be working the wing most of the night against Palmyra’s best player, Mia Julian. A junior who has verballed to James Madison University, Julian is the only Cougar committed to an NCAA Division I program at this stage.

Regrouping to halt the Mount’s early offensive thrusts, Palmyra pushed into the Mount half to pose a number of threats, and wound up with a 5-1 advantage in penalty corners for the first half.

Mount St. Joseph has relied on an accurate short passing game to bring the ball up the field as well as on long hits, but Palmyra had become skilled at covering a lot of ground in one stroke with skillful aerial passes along the right wing.

“The girl was very consistent with her execution,” Wentzel commented. “Once we knew they were going to use that a lot, we were able to react to it better.”

With about eight minutes remaining, what looked like fog began to waft over the field, but it turned out to be smoke from someone’s grill in the parking lot. The wind soon cleared it out, and after that genuine fog wouldn’t arrive until the beginning of the second PIAA game in the Milton Hersey stadium.

With under three minutes to go until halftime, MSJ’s Kratz made a romp down the right wing and centered the ball for Ellie Maransky, but her shot rose over the goal cage. On another nice cross by Kratz in the final minute, a Cougar defender got to the ball before any of the Magic.

The scoreboard clock horn, which sounded as if it had been pilfered from a locomotive engine, announced the end of the first period with the tally still 0-0.

At the beginning of the second stanza, Kratz once more directed the ball across the front of the Palmyra goal from the right endline, and junior Haley Cliggett (sister of Kennedy) almost reached it for a tip-in.

The Magic thought they’d definitely gotten onto the score board about four minutes in, when Ellie Maransky dribbled into the top of the circle and took a reversed-stick shot that sent the ball into the Cougar’s backboard with a thwack. However, an umpire who was directly aligned with the shooter ruled that the Mount senior had hit the ball with the rounded side of the foot of her stick, and thus, no goal.

After Kniezewski blocked a Palmyra shot off of a penalty corner at the other end of the pitch, the Mounties went back down the field and Maransky got off a shot that was stopped by the Cougars’ senior goalkeeper, Ashton Byrd (three saves total). A subsequent corner play did not yield a shot for Mount St. Joe.

On a corner at the other end, the Cougars’ Skylar Dise got the ball out to fellow junior Julian high on the left side of the circle. She bent down to launch a push shot with a lot of pace on the ball. It seemed as if the ball could not make it past the many players between Julian and the Mount goal, but it did, and the only point on the board all evening was up in lights with 15:35 left to play.

After a time-out by the Mount, the local stickwomen attacked for a spell, but then the momentum shifted. Although the Cougars did not score again, the time they spent in the offensive third helped drain the clock. Palmyra junior Lauren Wadas sent the ball low to set up a close-range shot for senior Shayla Myers, but the Mount’s McCarthy (five saves) stopped the ball.

A few Palymra corners followed, and there were several multi-player scrums in front of the goal as the Magic somehow managed to keep the ball out.

On a Mount corner with about nine minutes left the ball rolled out into the left side of the circle and was sent back inside, then a Cougar defender knocked it clear of the loop altogether. Palmyra took a time-out with 8:35 remaining, and roughly four minutes later the younger Maransky (Megan) drove a shot just a little wide to the left.

From there, the Mounties battled to the end in their quest for the equalizer. With 20 seconds left, Kratz fought her way down to the right endline, but the ball went out off of the Magic, and soon after that the final horn blasted.

Although a strong senior class is leaving and there were just two junior starters this season, Wentzel pointed out that this year’s Mount sophomores are very talented.

“I was happy with my first season,” she said. “I couldn’t have asked for a better group of kids in the program.”

UPDATE – In a Saturday quarterfinal, Palymra’s Julian scored twice in a 2-1 overtime victory to end Villa Maria’s season. No Philly-area teams survived to the semifinals, as Archbishop Carroll fell to Donegal, 3-0.