Revenge turning out to be sweet for Pine-Richland
Tri-State Sports & News Service
Pine-Richland avenged one regular-season loss to make it into the WPIAL Class 3A girls lacrosse semifinals.
To play in the championship game for the first time in school history, the Rams will need to do it one more time. And they’ll have to do it against the defending WPIAL champions.
On Monday, No. 3 PineRichland will take on second-seeded Mt. Lebanon in the semifinals, which will be a rematch of an April 19 meeting in which the Blue Devils pulled out a 12-10 victory. This comes on the heels of the Rams coming from behind in a 10-8 victory against Peters Township, a team that it lost to, 15-12, April 7.
“We’ve been working well all season and the girls are prepared. We’re further along to be able to adjust to anything that we get thrown at us,” Pine-Richland coach Brittany Adams said. “Peters is a great team that beat us in the regular season and, to face them again, and have the outcome in our favor, that’s for the better.”
Pine-Richland was able to show just how far along it had come since that first game. On Wednesday, the Rams fell behind early and trailed, 5-4, at halftime. But it was that resilience that they had built up over the course of the season that allowed them to score three consecutive goals in the second half to take control of the match and earn a spot in the semifinals for the second consecutive year.
Last season, however, Pine-Richland came into the playoffs as the No. 1 seed and was upset by Chartiers Valley in the semifinals. This time, though, it will be the Rams entering the game as the underdog and with something to prove after its earlier loss to Mt. Lebanon.
“It’s another case of playing an opponent that beat us,” Adams said. “Like Peters, Mt. Lebanon is a strong team and it was unfortunate we had to see them so early in the season and now in the semifinals instead of the finals.”
Other Class 3A semifinal
Fox Chapel entered the postseason as the No. 1 seed in the tournament and the only unbeaten team in the field.
And it’s still something theFoxes are getting used to.
“They’re doing a great job and we just take it day by day and game by game,” Fox Chapel coach Katie Lundberg said. “We just reiterate to them every day that we still have to be humble. No one’s invincible and anybody can beat anyone on any given day.”
So far, no team has been able to put a real chink in the Fox Chapel armor, though, as the team heads into Monday’s WPIAL Class 3A semifinals for the first time since 2011 when it lost to Sewickley Academy, 9-7, in the same round. The Foxes opponent, Seneca Valley, was also in the playoffs that year and defeated the Panthers, 12-11, to win the school’s only title.
Fox Chapel and Seneca Valley met in the season opener for both schools, a 13-7 Foxes win that set the tone for the entire season.
“If we play our best lacrossethen I think we can be very successful,” Lundberg said. “We didn’t start out playing our best lacrosse [in the quarterfinals against Upper St. Clair], but we figured it out about 10 minutes into the second half and we just kind of clicked.”
Everything has seemed to click for Fox Chapel this season.
Only one opponent, Shady Side Academy, has been able to keep Fox Chapel in single digits and the Indians still lost, 9-8, in the final match of the regular season. The only three teams to keep the Foxes under 15 goals in a game this season are Shady Side Academy, Peters Township and Seneca Valley.
Defensively, though, Fox Chapel has been even better. The Foxes have only given up double-digit goals four times this year.
“This year we just have talent across the field and everyone just contributes in one way or form. That’s something we haven’t seen before at Fox Chapel,” Lundberg said.