Lions edge Lehighton in OT

WHITEHALL — By the tip of the nose.

That’s how Lehighton head coach Corrine McConville described the Indians’ District 11 Class 1A championship game loss to Moravian Academy on Wednesday.

Her assessment was accurate. Just how close was the Tribe to knocking off D11 powerhouse Moravian?

• The Indians had six corners in the first half and compiled a total of nine compared to Moravian’s seven.

• Lehighton’s Maura Phelan, who had an exceptional all-around game, cracked the post with smashing slap-shots twice in the first half, missing the cage by no more than an inch — or the tip of the nose.

• The Tribe outshot Moravian by a 9-7 margin.

They were a threat. They fought the Lions until the end. But they came up just short in overtime, 2-1.

“The hardest part is that we are so young,” said McConville. “We only have three seniors. What we lack right now is experience. At the same time, this is the perfect place for them to gain it. You can only be super-excited about what’s to come.”

Phelan smacked the post so hard with a shot at the 6:41 mark of the first half that Phillipsburg might have heard it. The Lehighton sideline let out a synchronized gasp after the clank heard ‘round the Lehigh Valley, and then Moravian stormed right down the field and scored when Cassie Romanczuk found the back of the cage not even 60 seconds later.

The Indians could have rolled over after the abrupt swing of events. But they didn’t.

“To be honest, it’s a very hard loss,” said the Lehighton coach. “But this is what shows the kids that we are one of these teams; we’re up here and at this level now and we belong here. I’m pretty excited to see what we can do.”

Lehighton answered the call in the second half behind underclassman Kaia Slaw. The ball rolled by her feet after a few smooth passes came upfield to her, and the sophomore made a move and tied the game up with 19:56 left in regulation.

“Moravian is a really good school,” said Slaw. “I think we’re a really good school too — when we bring it. I just thought we played our butts off today. We almost had it, but they came out on top.

“We have an amazing coach this year. The team’s positivity is really up from last year. I just thought that our skills improved tremendously.”

After back-and-forth action, and some missed chances by both sides, the game went to overtime. McConville said it didn’t matter what the score was to her team — they were just going out there to keep playing the game that they love.

“I feel like the problem is that we don’t have confidence,” she said.” I feel like we think we’re really young and we don’t belong here ... We can hang with the best of them and that’s what I want them to believe. We have to believe it to achieve it.”

The Lions were playing a man-down for a majority of the first OT session, but they found a way to come though behind their star player, Romanczuk. With 5:34 left in the first overtime, she found the back of the cage when teammate Darby de Castro sprinted upfield and centered the ball to her.

After an 8-0 defeat to Moravian last season, this version of the Tribe took the Lions to their limit — and came up short — but only by the tip of the nose.

“I feel really good about it,” said Slaw. “We still have a chance to come back and play them again. We just have to keep training and stay positive.”

WHAT’S NEXT ... The Indians earned silver medals, taking second place in D11 Class 1A. They’ll play on Nov. 7 in the first round of the PIAA state playoffs.

COME CLOSER ... In the first half, Lehighton utilized the “strong side” of the field quite a bit; where McConville can easily send her squad verbal instructions from the sideline. “There’s a strong and a weak side of the field,” she explained. “We encourage people to go right, because that’s always your strong side and it’s always the (opponent’s) weak side. I like when we’re going that direction second, so they can hear me.”