Wednesday, November 4, 2009

PLAYOFFS: B-CC 2, Walter Johnson 1

By Calvin Cobb

In a battle for the right to play in the 4A West Regional finals, on a sunny fall November 3rd afternoon at B-CC, the Lady Barons asserted themselves early against Walter Johnson and jumped out to a 2-0 lead. But the Wildcats surged late, scored on a penalty corner to make it 2-1, and fought hard to the final whistle. In the end, the Barons prevailed, winning their 11th straight game and improving to 12-2.

On Thursday at 6 p.m., the Barons will play Westminster, the No. 1 regional seed, in Westminster. The winner will go to the State 4A semi-finals.

Unlike earlier in the year, when the Barons fell behind to Walter Johnson but came back to win in overtime, the Barons thoroughly dominated the play in the first five minutes. Rachel Ruda opened up the scoring when Charlotte Kettler centered the ball to Sunny Cobb, who immediately sent it across the field inside the circle to Ruda. Ruda made a fine shot from just inside the circle through two defenders and beat the goaltender on the far post to give the Barons a 1-0 lead three minutes into the game.

Two minutes later, the Barons earned a penalty corner. Meredith Storm made a fine insert to Cobb, whose shot bounced off the goalie’s pads straight onto the stick of Jenn Dewey, who lifted it halfway up the net to make it 2-0. The Barons earned five more penalty corners in the first half and generated some close calls in front, but could not increase their lead.

The Wildcats found some rhythm, and gave themselves some fast break opportunities, but Lauren Serpan made it look easy, turning aside several shots in a row from in close. In all the Wildcats earned three corners of their own and, on one of them, the ball got behind Serpan and made it to the goal line, where Ruth Andrews simply out-muscled several Wildcats to knock the ball back and out of harm’s way.

The play went back and forth – the Barons had a number of scoring chances but could not finish; the same went for the Wildcats. Serpan was excellent in goal. In addition, Andrews and Storm had plenty of opportunity to show their moxie when the chips were down, and the Barons were tested defensively in a way they had not been since early in the season. Offensively they were out of sync – they were not able to carry the ball effectively, and their passes were close but just errant enough to slow things down. But the Barons held together, used their depth and mustered enough effort to pull through, earning the right to defend their regional title.

Andrews received Amy's Apple for her strong defensive play throughout the game.

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