Indians, Mounts meet for title again
The Lehighton girls field hockey team has been waiting for this chance a whole year.
Last fall, the Indians (19-0) swept through the regular season, but hit a roadblock in the Mountain Valley Conference playoffs when they dropped a 1-0 decision to Stroudsburg in the league championship game.
The Indians earned a shot at the Mountaineers again as both won their MVC semifinal games at Lehighton High Stadium.
Stroudsburg defeated Pleasant Valley 3-1 in the opener, while the Indians shut out East Stroudsburg South 3-0 in the nightcap.
The two teams will square off at 6 p.m. on Saturday at East Stroudsburg South for the league crown.
"I'm glad it's Stroudsburg," said Lehighton head coach Shawn Hindy. "I know I did and the girls also wanted to play them. We want to take back the title. It's going to be fun."
It took a while for the Indians to get their first goal. It didn't come until there was 5:17 left in the first half when Stephanie Slaw pushed one past Cavalier goalie Mariah Mickens off an assist from Abbey Frey.
Less than a minute later, Echo Bretz gave the Tribe a 2-0 lead with an unassisted goal.
"I think we got antsy," said Hindy, while talking about a bit of a slow start. "During a time out, I told them we can't score 10 goals at once. A lot of times the first goal is the hardest one to get and we were pressing just a little bit to get that goal.
"Once we got that first goal, we kind of relaxed better and played well after that."
Slaw added her second goal of the game with 25:44 left in the second half unassisted and the Indian defense took over from there.
"The way we play, left wing, right wing, if you're in the right spot you're going to tap it in," said Hindy. "I thought overall our passing was very well and we had a good game."
The Indians held a 23-0 edge in shots on goal and a 13-1 edge in penalty corners. Mickens made 15 saves for the Cavaliers, while Lehighton goalie Sarah Snyder had a free night.
In the opener, the Mounts (12-6-1) scored a goal in the first half and added two more in the second half en route to a 3-1 win over the Bears (9-8-2).
Stroudsburg had just seven shots on goal and scored on three of them.
With 19:45 left in the first half, Sarah Williams gave her team a 1-0- advantage off a Sam Parker assist.
Lis Leh scored with 13:35 left in the game off a Katie Nauman assist and Lauren Williams added the other Stroudsburg goal off an assist from Enya Cunningham with 8:55 left.
The Bears avoided a shutout when Jessica Sanbeg scored with 5:47 left and Alura Bellis had an assist.
Jordan Borger made four saves in goal for the Bears, while Kayleigh Stewart made 10 saves for Stroudsburg.
"I thought we were at least as good as them if not better," said PV coach Bob Young. "We created more pressure, got a lot of corners, but we couldn't put the ball in. They defended very well and we didn't.
"We had a lot of chances, but it wasn't our night."