Pleasant Valley earns top seed in EPC playoffs
History lesson time; In 1832, Sen. William Learned Marcy of New York coined the phrase, “to the victor belongs the spoils.”
Thursday night, the victor was the Pleasant Valley girls lacrosse team and the spoils were the top seed in the EPC playoffs. The Bears had already wrapped up the top spot in districts, so why not go out and collect the league’s top seed as well?
Pleasant Valley did that with a 9-5 win over Emmaus.
With EPC play completed, the Bears finish at 8-0 in the EPC, while the Green Hornets finish 6-2 and will be the No. 2 seed thanks to a regular-season win over Easton, also 6-2.
The stars of the night for Pleasant Valley were sophomore Devon Bush and freshman Rylee Rath and the entire Bears defense, which continued to handle opposing offenses.
Both teams came out looking to land a quick punch, but neither connected. Slowly, Pleasant Valley began to control the play and at the 11:56 mark of the first half, Bush put a shot past junior goaltender Alani Shotwell and the Bears had the ice breaker. Three minutes later, Bush worked her way into position to get her second goal, making it 2-0.
“We actually had a lot of plans coming in to shut them down, but we didn’t really go through with any of them,” Bush said with a laugh. “It was confidence going in and we really used that confidence; it kept us from having any nerves. It was all confidence and the mindset.”
With top scorer Jordyn Poll sitting out after receiving a yellow card, Pleasant Valley made the most of the advantage and Rath took a pass from Bush and was able to beat Shotwell to make it 3-0. The combo of Bush and Rath had a hand in all nine of the Bears’ goals on the night.
“We have played together on club teams since first or second grade,” said Rath of the connection between her and Bush. “It feels amazing to be able to play with each other in these big games and support each other.”
The damage would have been much worse if not for Shotwell, who made quality saves early in the game to keep Emmaus within striking distance. Meanwhile, at the other end the Pleasant Valley defense, which had allowed just 92 goals in 16 previous games, continued to dominate.
“The key to our defense is communication and being there for each other. We always have each other’s slides and just communicating,” said defender Cecilia Cordova. “We are a tight group of players, and we work well as a team.”
Emmaus was dealt a blow when leading scorer, Poll picked up her second yellow card of the
game and was given an automatic ejection. The Green Hornets did manage to get their first goal before halftime on a free position play when Bri McClain took the shot to cut the Bears’ lead to 3-1, with hopes that the late success would carry into the second half.
Both teams made some adjustments and the final 25 minutes belonged to the offenses. Rath and Bush scored the first goals of the half to give Pleasant Valley a 5-1 lead with 19:04 left in regulation. Emmaus was far from done though as senior Emily Hollinger picked up two goals within six minutes of each other, with the second coming on a free position play as she took a step and fired from long range to beat goalie Abygail Borger, making a game out of it with the score moving to 5-3.
A Hornets foul with 8:35 left to play gave Pleasant Valley its second free position play of the night and after missing on the first, Rath took a pass from Olivia Iandoli and made it 6-3, dealing another blow to Emmaus. Rath then put a shot on goal that bounced off Shotwell and came back into play where Rath grabbed it and fired before Shotwell could get reset. Next up was Bush, who tied Rath with four goals on the night as Pleasant Valley strung together three goals within three minutes and led 8-3.
Emmaus sophomore Brooke Peterson took a feed from Melea Weber and less than a minute later, Hollinger got the ball to McClain, who scored her second of the night and it was 8-5, but only 1:39 remained on the clock.
Just to be sure, Bush fed senior Madison Fava, who finished the scoring to make it 9-5, keeping Pleasant Valley perfect at 17-0 overall. Emmaus fell to 14-4 overall on the season.
The two teams are likely to meet again in the postseason like they did last season. In both the EPC and District 11 tournaments, Emmaus was the top seed and Pleasant Valley was seeded third. In the league playoffs, the Bears knocked off Easton and then took out Emmaus 11-9 in the EPC championship. In districts, Pleasant Valley again beat Easton, but this time around, Emmaus collected the gold medals with an 11-6 win.
“We expected them to be pretty strong because they were strong last year. We didn’t play our best offensively tonight and we learned from what we saw tonight. We have to focus on where we didn’t succeed to night so we can make some changes and adjust some things; we have some ideas,” said Emmaus coach Roxanne Betz. “We also did not pull everything out of our hat tonight because we have bigger games coming up.”
Of some concern is that Rath limped off the field as time ran down. She had felt some pain in her foot a few games earlier, but she was able to return to the lineup. She aggravated the soreness as she stepped awkwardly during a play, but with ice strapped to her foot, the pain quickly subsided, and she was smiling and talking to teammates.
Leaving Mifflin miffed
Emmaus downed Governor Mifflin 22-2 last Saturday and in the process had a couple of players reach milestones. Hollinger had seven goals to record her 200th career goal. Meanwhile, junior Jordyn Poll also had a good game, and a good week as well. Poll recorded her 200th career point and reached the 100-groundball mark for the season, which puts her at the top of the school’s all-time leader list in groundballs with 215.
Setting the seeds
The EPC tournament will have Pleasant Valley, Emmaus, and Easton as the top three teams in the four-team tournament.
The fourth spot goes to Parkland, which tied at 5-3 in the league with Freedom, but beat the Patriots to win the tiebreaker.
In districts, the top three remain the same, but Freedom will be fourth with a 10-6 conference record.
The EPC tournament will be played next week, while the 2A schools from the Colonial League will finish their regular-season schedule because the league does not have a postseason tournament.
Chuck Hixson is a freelance writer.