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Blue Devils advance past Wootton

Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo J. Adam fenster⁄the gazette Springbrook goalie Lauren Kessler makes a first-half save against Wootton’s Dani Himelfarb in Thursday’s 4A South Region quarterfinal. The Blue Devils won, 1-0.

During the second half of that match and shortly after the final whistle, it was the Springbrook players who were doing the celebrating, however, including a victory dance after a goal by Kristen Pena and a solid defensive effort led the second-seeded Blue Devils to a 1-0 postseason win.

Springbrook (10-3), the reigning champions, were to play sixth-seeded Whitman (7-4), a 2-0 winner over third-seeded Richard Montgomery (9-4), Tuesday for a spot in Thursday’s 4A West Region final.

The win over Wootton (9-4) was fueled mostly by the play of goalkeeper Lauren Kessler and defender Kelly Callan, who helped shut out a Wootton team that was averaging three goals this season, including 16 in its last three matches and four against a veteran Poolesville squad.

‘‘We knew that our defense would have to be rock-solid if we were going to handle their offense,” said Blue Devils coach Kearney Francis, whose Blue Devils recorded their seventh shutout in the win. ‘‘We picked up our marks high and tried to stay between their girls and the goal.

‘‘They move the ball with good vision and I think that makes it tough on a defense to control. Our defense had to do a lot of quick thinking and quick reacting and it just went our way today.”

The seventh-seeded Patriots had been denied a possible top four seed because of two rainouts made up after the playoff draw.

‘‘I give a lot of credit to their backs,” Wootton coach Mike Parrish said. ‘‘We’ve found a way to score in most games, but we couldn’t get the ball consistently through those couple of backs. Even when we had some breakaway possibilities.”

Springbrook slapped on the defensive clamps in the second half after a back-and-forth first 30 minutes, limiting Wootton to a single shot after halftime. Callan did her part by crushing one free hit after another from one end of the field to the other to force the Patriots, through their short passing game, to go long distances to reach Springbrook’s scoring circle.

‘‘They just had hard hits,” Patriots senior midfielder Sam Lonsway said. ‘‘We’d work so hard to get the ball down there and they’d hit the ball once. That’s all they did for their game tactic. I think we were more skillful.”

With the ball largely residing in Wootton territory, the Springbrook offense was able to produce four second-half penalty corners, which led to Pena’s goal. She scored the game-winning goal with 17 minutes, 54 seconds left in the match, knocking in a cross that went under a teammate streaking to the goal and to Pena, who then punched in a shot past Patriots goalkeeper Sam Bass (6 saves).

‘‘It was a off a penalty corner we work on a lot,” Pena said. ‘‘It came right to me so I just swept it in. I think in the first half, we were a little shaky but we got it together in the second half and it all clicked.”