Dan Sherman
Asst. SID
Juniata
814-641-3513
Huntingdon, PA, Juniata's field hockey team defeated the Landmark Conference top seeded Catholic 2-1 in a thrilling double overtime match that seven graduating Eagles will never forget. The win caps off a regular season in which Juniata finished with a 12-5 record, going 5-2 against conference rivals. Entering the day, the Cardinals were the 8th ranked team in the nation, having only lost one game, and none to conference opponents.
A day after the game was supposed to be played, the Eagles came to Knox Stadium with an extra edge and played their most inspired game of the season. Juniata set the tone early, letting Catholic know they were not to be trifled with. Coach Gillich was proud of the way her team came out to start the game, "Overall, excited about the way we came out. As a coach it's the way you want them to come out every game, what a great day to come out on fire and really put it to Catholic in the first 35 minutes to let them know who they were playing today. It was real exciting to see my team show up, and do so together. I worked them hard last week, there was no gliding at this point and let them know that there are some things they still need to work on and bring them together as a team. Last week our critical weakness was not playing great team hockey. There's a lot of great players out there, but one great player isn't going to beat another good team. You need a great team going against a great team."
The Eagles scored the game's first goal in the 29th minute to take a 1-0 lead into the half. Sarah Bilheimer (Bethlehem, PA / Freedom) found freshman Katie Alexander (Mifflinburg, PA / Mifflinburg) and the forward was able to put one past one of the conference's best keepers to put her team ahead.
The Eagles defense played a great game today, shutting down the Catholic offense throughout the first 70 minutes of play. Senior Tori Buser (Allentown, PA / Parkland) notched her 11th career defensive save in the second half to maintain the Juniata lead. Julianne Jones (Middleburg, PA / Midd-West) had another strong day in the cage, making 5 saves, and keeping her team in the game long enough to get the win.
The Cardinals were awarded a corner with 24 seconds left in regulation. They took the corner with five seconds left and on the clock, and were able to tie the game on a controversial goal as time expired. The team and coach disagreed with the call, but needed to stay focused on the task at hand. As Gillich put it, "Any time you meet adversity, it's interesting to see how they react. At first, of course they're young and they can't help themselves, they're young and they focused on what happened. It was just a matter of getting them over the fact that the game wasn't over. Anything could happen. Anything did happen. A goal went in. We may disagree with the call, but like it or heading into overtime. You better like it and embrace it, because we need to figure out what we need to do to be successful in overtime. It's the first team to score. The first team to put it together is the team that wins. There's no time to cry about it."
The team, playing in their sixth overtime game of the season, proved their resiliency yet again, scoring the game winning golden goal after 95 minutes of play. Bilheimer passed to Kortney Showers (Aspers, PA / Biglerville) off of a penalty corner, and the senior midfielder passed back to the forward, who was positioned on the left side of the goal. Bilheimer redirected the ball into the cage to seal Juniata's first win over Catholic in four years. Bilheimer and Showers both had strong games for the Eagles, with Showers really coming on strong in her final regular season game in front of the home crowd. Discussing the game afterwards, Showers said that, "it was bittersweet, but it couldn't have been a better way for the game to go", noting that her class had not defeated Catholic before today.
Looking ahead to Wednesday's conference semifinal match the head coach stated, "I'm not sure who's more excited. I think the girls are. They cannot wait, and I cannot wait to see them play E-town honestly. That was the last time I felt like we played a really great game, offensive game We kept it up there and had so many opportunities to score a goal. We scored a goal, it wasn't called a goal, its unfortunate, but that's the way it goes. It's kind of great that they have the energy from that game, as we go into the postseason. If there was a team they wanted to play in the playoffs first, it was E-town." The team finished the season ranked third in the Landmark and therefore will travel to Elizabethtown, in hopes of getting some revenge against the Blue Jays.
