[Baltimore Sun] Towson field hockey rallies for victory over No. 11 Hereford, 2-1, in Baltimore County championship
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After falling behind by a goal early, Towson’s Kate Wahler scored twice in the second half to lift the Generals to a 2-1 victory over No. 11 Hereford in the Baltimore County championship game.
Wahler, a captain and one of 17 Towson seniors, scored the tying goal just under two minutes into the second half when she intercepted an attempted clear and notched the unassisted tally.
“It was a really good late pass to open space and that put us in a position without any defenders and I had a good breakaway and was able to pull it around the goalie and score,” Wahler said.
The game-winning score came on a penalty shot by Wahler with 10:25 left in regulation. She set up the penalty shot, which was called because a Hereford defender illegally stopped her shot while she was behind goalie Julie Pfitzinger.
“Somebody on my team shot and I got the rebound and I was flicking it into goal and it hit a girls foot, so they got a penalty on the line and I was able to get a shot,” Wahler said.
Towson (9-3), which lost to Hereford during the regular season, fell behind in the first minute of the game on what coach Caitlin Duvall called “a great goal” by Grace Berquist that started with a penalty corner inserted by Caitlin Meeker and assisted by Lauren Mathews.
Hereford (9-4), the defending county champions, really turned up the pressure in the second quarter by keeping the ball in Towson’s defensive end for nearly the entire 15 minutes. The Bulls had shots by Kayla Owings off a corner and one from the doorstep by Meeker late in the quarter that were both saved by goalie Jane Shields.
“You have to give Towson all the credit,” Duvall said. “They had great momentum when they came out after halftime. Their fire was hard to beat. I definitely think not getting a second goal kind of changed the momentum.”
“Getting scored on really early on, we realized as a team that we needed to slow it down and play more of a possession game,” Wahler said. “At halftime we just had a talk. We talked about how much we wanted this, how much we worked for this, how many drills in practice we’ve done working on these exact things and we were just able to put it together.”
Hereford did have some chances in the second half, including a pair of shots on goal in the third quarter and they had goal by Owings nullified with 7:40 left in the fourth quarter because the ball never exited the circle on a penalty corner.
Baltimore County field hockey championship | PHOTOS
“It was very nerve-wracking,” Towson coach Natalie Schuman said. “But we came together, identified what the barriers were and kind of did more of a pep talk and did the fixes that we needed to do to ensure that we knew the confidence that we had in the girls was translated to them appropriately, so that they could go out and take the field and know what they needed to do. We came out and utterly dominated the third and fourth quarter.”
The Bulls still got nine penalty corners in the fourth quarter, including four after regulation time had elapsed. But big defensive stops by Phoebe Miller and a final breakup on the last play by Finlay Harmon ended the game. Shields also had a key save on a shot by Ryleigh Collins with 70 seconds left to help preserve the lead.
“[Shields] is dominating this year,” Schuman said. “She’s been practicing with other coaches and she’s really interested in playing field hockey in college so she’s been working really, really hard.”
Focus now shifts to the upcoming regional playoffs.
“We are not done yet,” said Schuman, whose squad opens play in the Class 3A regionals on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. when they host Dulaney. Hereford hosts North Harford in the Class 2A regionals on Thursday at 6 p.m.
Have a news tip? Contact Craig Clary at cclary@baltsun.com and x.com/ClaryCraig.
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