Twin Valley spells end for Miller, O’Hara

WEST GOSHEN » Ellie Miller was a freshman at Cardinal O’Hara when she began playing lacrosse in 2019. So much has changed since then.

Miller, who is days away from wearing a cap and gown at graduation, removed her Cardinal O’Hara uniform for the last time Saturday night after the Lions had fallen to District 3 champion Twin Valley, 13-9, in the quarterfinal round of the PIAA Class 2A girls lacrosse tournament at West Chester East’s Zimmerman Stadium.

“The change has been so dramatic,” Miller said. “When I started, we had trouble beating some Catholic League teams. Now today we’re playing in the second round of the state tournament. I wish it didn’t have to end. I’m not really ready to leave high school.”

O’Hara head coach Jen Duckenfield would love to have Miller stick around.

“She played such a great game today,” Duckenfield said. “We played a good team, and they will be tough for whoever still has to play them. They were better on the draws and beat us to groundballs in the midfield. The thing I can say about my team is that they continued to fight from the time the game began until it ended. That’s why I’m so proud of this team.”

Emma Raines opened the scoring for Twin Valley in the third minute, and about a minute and a half later Anna Kaplan (two goals, two assists, three draw controls) unleashed a laser shot that put the Raiders up by two goals.

Miller countered that early surge with a pair of goals 32 seconds apart.

Addison Hertzog scored for Twin Valley in the eighth minute, and Lexi Culp got O’Hara even two minutes later.

Jade Shearer (three goals, three draw controls) put Twin Valley ahead to stay 16 seconds after Culp’s goal, then Julia Givens got the first of her three scores and Kaplan tallied again before Miller halted the Raiders’ run.

“We don’t play the teams O’Hara does,” Courtney Kaplan, Anna’s mother and the Twin Valley head coach, said. “We watched them on film and knew we didn’t have to change our game plan. We stressed playing good defense and we stressed draw controls.”

Anna Kaplan was among the defenders who helped out in front of

Twin Valley goalie Paige Borkowski (eight saves). Both goal posts also did their part in keeping some Lions’ shots out of the cage.

“We hit the pipe about three times,” Duckenfield said. “And we had some unlucky bounces that didn’t go our way.”

One of those bounces came on a first half shot that O’Hara goalie Mack Hand appeared to have the chance to make a save on until the ball bounced up over her stick for a goal.

“We knew we would have to play a strong game today,” Miller said. “We all had to work hard and do our jobs.”

Anna Kaplan helped place the draws where her teammates could control possessions.

“We talk to each other a lot,” she said. “If something isn’t working, we get ready for something new.”

What Kaplan, a Loyola commit, and the other senior members of the Twin Valley team hope will be different from last season is having the chance to play in the state final Saturday morning back at West Chester East. A semifinal win over Strath Haven Tuesday would give the Raiders their place in the championship game.

“We lost in the (semifinals) to Carroll last year in the game that never wanted to end,” she said, referring to the 2021 semi that was moved back three days by weather. “Next week, we would love to be coming back here to play in the morning before we have to go back home for graduation that night.”