Thursday, April 15, 2010

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Kelly Reers had a goal and 4 assists for IHA, which topped Glen Rock, 18-11, on Thursday to improve to 5-0 on the season.

WASHINGTON TWP. -- Since girls lacrosse became a varsity sport in Bergen County there has been a wide gulf between Ridgewood and everyone else. Every year the question is can anyone close the gap between themselves and the Maroons, the only team ever to win the Bergen County Tournament and an annual state power. If there is a contender in 2010, it just might be IHA, an experienced and athletic side that was a county finalist one year ago.

It’s not like the Blue Eagles are calling Ridgewood out, but some team has to stand on the other side of the county final with a chance to pull the upset, so they figure it might as well be them.

“Everyone knows that Ridgewood is No. 1 in Bergen County and that is where we want to be, so we know that they are the team we have to shoot for,” said IHA’s Kelly Reers. “We’ve been to the county finals, but to take the next step to win the whole county tournament, which is what we want to do, you are going to have to beat Ridgewood to get the title.”

Sophomore goalkeeper Erica Pollet finished with 15 saves for Glen Rock.

The county final is still about a month away, but IHA certainly looks like a team that is ready to make another run at it. The Blue Eagles led start to finish on Thursday in an 18-11 win over Glen Rock, a team that gave its best effort and played what was probably its best game of the season to date.

So as it turned out, both teams left the field feeling good. IHA ran its record to 5-0 while Glen Rock head coach Karen Mackie saw a host of positives.

“For us, this was our best showing. I thought we doubled well in the midfield, I thought our defense played great against what is a stellar offensive team. I thought our slides were great, we crashed [the net] well and I thought our goalie [Erica Pollet] really played well. She had 15 saves and she is just a sophomore,” said Mackie, whose program is in just its fifth year of existence on the varsity level. “We are not a team full of club players, we have a lot of three-sport athletes on this team, and this was our best outing so far. It shows that we are moving in the right direction.”

IHA's KC Nunez scored 3 of her team-high 5 goal in the first half.

The direction that IHA took was directly at the Glen Rock goal. With an array of offensive weapons and speed on the flanks, the Eagles can score in a variety of ways like when Reers split two defenders in the middle of the attacking zone and scored the game’s first goal 3:09 in. Twenty one seconds later, Kelly Ann Quinn flicked a pass over the defense to Emily Doyle, who took possession to the left of the goal, paused to let the defense go by and then went across the goal mouth and scored to give a IHA a 2-0 lead.

Jamie Marino got Glen Rock on the board for the first time with a long run up the right side. She was fouled on her way to the net and converted on the restart to cut IHA’s lead in half. But it was a recurring theme in the game as IHA would threaten to pull way and Glen Rock would answer back, getting close, but never close enough to make any one IHA possession a do-or-die situation.

The Eagles pushed their lead to 7-2 with 10:14 to go in the first half when Kaitlyn McSwiggar scored through traffic in front and went ahead 10-5 just before halftime by putting together a pretty combination. Maura Schwitter scooped up a loose ball in the defensive end with just less than 30 seconds to go in the half and hit Gabby McManon, who was moving through the midfield, in stride. McManon drew the defense to the middle of the field and then put the ball right in the basket of KC Nunez, who put home her third goal of the first half 12 seconds before the whistle.

Meg Callanan, who will play next season at Delaware, led Glen Rock with 4 goals.

“I was excited about scoring early and helping build the lead, but it not about scoring goals for me. It about opportunities that I can make for my teammates and that they can make for me, getting the ball to players who are in a position to score,” said Nunez. “Our best aspect as a team is transition. We have some younger players, freshmen and sophomores, who been great additions to our team as a whole. It has added to our speed and our transition looks great.”

IHA transitioned to its largest lead of the game with 14:41 left Erin White stepped in front of a Glen Rock pass in the midfield and quickly moved the ball ahead to Reers, Glen Rock resident playing against her hometown team. Reers then found Callopy, who put it in the net. It was IHA’s fourth straight goal after Valerie Litt had gotten Glen Rock to with 10-6 by scoring the first goal of the second half.

But rather than going in the tank after falling behind by eight, Glen Rock (1-3) called a timeout, got back-to-back goals from Marino and Litt , cut the lead to 14-8 and forced IHA to burn a timeout of its own. But that was as close as the Panthers would get as McManon’s rebound goal off a Doyle shot that rang the post ended any hopes of a sustained Glen Rock comeback.

“This was a good game for us because Glen Rock is a good team, they fought us all the way. We got the win and were able to see some of the things we need to work on,” said IHA Katie Reinhard. “Maybe we weren’t as focused as we should have been but a lot of that was because Glen Rock never gave up even when we went up by seven or eight [goals].”

Gabby McManon had 3 goals and an assist for IHA.

Nunez finished with a game-high five goals, while Callopy added three goals and a team high five assists for IHA. The Eagles spread the offense around as McManon added three goals and an assist; Doyle had two of each; Quinn had two goals to go with an assist and Reers handed out four assists to go with one goal. McSwiggar (2 goals) and Reinhard (1 goal) rounded out the IHA scoring.

Glen Rock got all of its goals from a cluster of four players. Meg Callanan, a senior who has already committed to play at the University Delaware next season, led the way with four, followed by three from Litt and Marino and Maggie Egan added one. Charlotte Svossi had two assists and Meredith Firth had the other helper for the Panthers, who may be just have turned the corner toward success despite coming up on the short side of the score.

“This was our best performance of the season and we did it against a very good team. Last year we went 9-9 and my goal for us this year is to do better than that. Other than teams like Ridgewood, IHA and Mountain Lakes I think we matchup against everyone else we are going to play this year and I hope we can get some wins,” said Mackie. “This is only our fifth year as a varsity sport so I really think we are building. We have a lot of seniors this year, but in our youth program we have over 100 girls in fifth grade through eight. The program is on the rise, I know it is.”

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