ALLENTOWN \u2013 It might be a pretty good omen that the rebuilding Allentown High field hockey team is performing one aspect of the game better this year than last season, when it won the CVC Tournament and reached the sectional finals.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny win is a good win and this year, especially, we\u2019ve been doing really well in winning the close games,\u201d coach Kayla Peterson said after Addie Meyers\u2019 fourth-period goal gave the Redbirds a 2-1 win over Northern Burlington Monday. \u201cLast year we struggled a little bit. We\u2019d play a good team; we\u2019d be with them the entire time and the last quarter we\u2019d lose by one goal. This year we\u2019ve done a great job winning by one or two goals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Allentown (5-3) has won three straight, and four of its five victories have been by two goals or less.<\/p>\n
This latest success came against an NBC team (4-3) that seemed evenly matched with the Redbirds. Both squads entered the game with two straight wins. The Greyhounds had outscored opponents 15-12 and was 11th in South Jersey Group III power points, while Allentown outscored foes 15-13 and was 12th in SJ II power points.<\/p>\n
In one of those strange sports things, Northern emerged with a huge statistical advantage, outshooting Allentown 17-2 in shots on goal while getting 11 penalty corners to the Redbirds 5.<\/p>\n
But the home team gutted out the win.<\/p>\n
The first half was fairly even and both goals came from scrambles off corners. Junior Kaitlin Haddock\u2019s first career goal (off the first of two Susannah Morino assists) gave Allentown a 1-0 lead 3:43 into the second period. NBC answered 1:14 later on Sammi Christensen\u2019s second goal of the season.<\/p>\n
After intermission, the game turned drastically in every way but on the scoreboard.<\/p>\n
NBC completely dominated with a 9-0 shot advantage and five penalty corners, including four within a span of 1:35.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we started to get a little frantic,\u201d Peterson said. \u201cWhen that happens we\u2019re trying to get the girls to settle down When we settle we play our game. We were just playing to their game. That number 16 (Sydney Roche) in the middle was just getting everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
But goalie Anna Simonds was her usual self, making seven of her 16 saves in the quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnna is always incredible,\u201d Meyers said. \u201cShe\u2019s always such a life saver. Just an amazing goalie.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peterson agreed, saying, \u201cShe\u2019s incredible. She\u2019s a brick wall. It\u2019s hard to even compare where we\u2019d be without her.\u201d<\/p>\n
The coach was just hoping that the rest of the team would make Simonds good work count.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately we\u2019ve been getting a lot of corners on us and then Anna steps up so well and gets the ball out,\u201d Peterson said. \u201cThat\u2019s where you have to pick up your teammates. When our defense is working so hard we have to be able to capitalize and pick them up. We have to take the pressure off somehow.\u201d<\/p>\n
They did just that early in the fourth quarter, when Morino sent a pass to Meyers, who shot one in from the top of the circle.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just hoping if it went in, it went in, or if we got a rebound someone would get on it,\u201d Meyers said. \u201cIt was incredible for us. Everyone was able to just bring it down the field and change the momentum. I think that sealed the deal. We were able to hold on to that goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was almost like someone put a pin in Northern\u2019s balloon, as they could did not have the same offensive thrust from that point.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat goal was huge,\u201d Peterson said. \u201cThe pressure was building and building. Thankfully the end of the quarter came at the right time and to come back immediately and be able to capitalize was huge.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the way things have been going for Allentown as the Redbirds\u2019 youth continues to gel.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just staying positive,\u201d Meyers said. \u201cJust keeping the energy up even if we start slow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peterson feels it has helped that the Redbirds got some strong teams out of the way early. The combined record of the three teams they lost to was 12-6 entering Monday and they have knocked off two quality programs in Princeton and Northern.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first half of the regular season was tough for a young team to be thrown into those games,\u201d the coach said. \u201cNot that the rest are easy but we were challenged so much at the beginning, we\u2019ve seen some of the toughest teams we\u2019ll see. So I think we\u2019ll be able to go into CVCs stronger because of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s when winning close games really comes in handy.<\/p>\n
No. Burlington (4-3) 0 1 0 0 \u2013 1<\/p>\n
Allentown (5-3) 0 1 0 1 \u2013 2<\/p>\n
Goals: N: Christensen. A: Haddock, Meyers. Assists: A: Morino, 2<\/p>\n
Shots on goal: N: 17, A: 2 Saves:\u00a0 N: Morgan 0, A: Simonds 16<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN \u2013 It might be a pretty good omen that the rebuilding Allentown High field hockey team is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,305,915,726,10356],"class_list":["post-291177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-high-school-sports","tag-new-jersey","tag-sports","tag-top-stories-trt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}