***Click on videos link to the left to view video highlights and interviews from the game***
By Andy States
Content Manager, SMAC
As Elizabeth Seton came to the sidelines at the half of Wednesday’s WCAC field hockey semifinal against the visting St. Mary’s Ryken Knights, Coach Meghan Sheperd had one clear message — to finsh it in regulation.
The Roadrunners had a knack for taking games to overtime all season, including last Friday in a win at Ryken that was decided in penalty strokes. But with Wednesday’s game scoreless at the break and a spot in the championship game on the line, Sheperd did not want to leave anything to chance.
“We actually kind of played a similar game [on Friday] as we did today,” Sheperd said. “We were controlling the ball a lot of the game, but weren’t putting it into the goal. Unfortunately that was happening again today. So at halftime, although they got to hear the spirit squad for a second, they kind of got reamed a little bit just about finishing the game and ending it in regulation. We didn’t want to have to get into that situation again where it is a 50-50 game.”
Katie Rogers made sure the Roadrunners didn’t end up in that situation again. Rogers pounded one home in the early stages of the second half to account for the game’s only goal and earn Seton its first trip to the championship game by a 1-0 count over Ryken.
“It just felt good,” Rogers said. “We needed a goal. We went the whole first half without scoring, so the second half we didn’t want to go to overtime again.”
“We’ve been trying so hard and for some reason it just hasn’t been going in,” Seton’s Amy Shirron added. “We’ve had so many close, 0-0 games up until the end. It was awesome to see it finally go in because we’ve been working so hard and we deserved it and we needed it.”
Wednesday marked not only the first time Seton (10-6) advanced to a championship game, but the first time the squad had even hosted a semifinal. And after graduating a sizeable crop of seniors from last year’s team, this season opened with more than a few question marks.
“We thought we were going [to the championship game] last year,” Sheperd said. “We had an amazing team last year. We graduated a lot of seniors, but we still came back and, in fact, I think it was more our girls playing together and playing like a team. That got us to this point.”
The Roadrunners advance to Saturday night’s championship game at 6 p.m. at the University of Maryland. The opponent, Holy Cross, which defeated Good Counsel in double overtime in the other semifinal. Seton and Holy Cross split the regular season series.
“It still feels unreal,” Sophie Shiaris said.
“We’re so excited,” Shirron said. “We’ve never gotten this far in Seton history. We’ve made it to the semifinals. We’ve never had a semifinal game on our field and we’ve never made it to championships. It’s awesome for us.”
Elizabeth Seton 1, St. Mary’s Ryken 0
SMR 0 0
ES 0 1
Goal
Seton: Rogers
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