Last year, it was a nice bonus, but this year it was expected.
The Springfield Township girls’ lacrosse team, with a strong returning core, planned to compete for an SOL American Conference title. They faced some trouble in the first quarter on Wednesday night, but it was only temporary.
The Spartans dominated in the second and third quarters, then managed to win in the fourth, defeating Wissahickon 13-10 and earning a share of the conference title for the second year in a row.
Spartans senior Emma Yoder said, “Our sophomore year was a building year for us. Winning junior year and losing only a few seniors, this year we expected to win, and we're happy we did.”
Springfield Township shares the SOL American title with Upper Dublin, as the Cardinals beat Cheltenham 15-3 earlier on Wednesday. Last season, the conference title was shared between the Spartans, Cardinals and Upper Moreland.
A 7-6 loss to Plymouth Whitemarsh on April 29 prevented Springfield Twp (12-5, 10-1 SOL American) from an unbeaten league season. However, the Spartans’ 9-7 win at Upper Dublin on April 24 kept the possibility of sharing the title open. 12 minutes into Wednesday’s game, Wissahickon was leading 3-1, but the Spartans were not performing well.
Senior midfielder Maddie McDevitt said, “We needed to adjust to their zone because we were used to playing against man defense with Abington. Once we figured out their strategy, we started getting more chances to score.”
Emma Greenberg scored with 7:22 left in the first half, giving the Trojans a 4-2 lead. Back-to-back goals by Fiona Rizzo, both assisted by Samantha McDevitt, started a four-goal Spartans run to end the second quarter with a 6-4 lead for the visitors at halftime.
Maddie McDevitt, who scored the last two goals of the half, said the Spartans were not just content with taking the lead. Yoder, committed to St. Joseph’s where she'll join her older sister Maddie and fellow Springfield Township alum Emily Smith next year, added that there were no major changes, just a focus on maintaining their level of play in the final six minutes.
Yoder said, “We aimed to keep our energy up and keep finding the open player. We continued doing exactly what we had been doing. I think we had a 70 percent success rate on draws in the first half, so we wanted to increase it to 80 percent.”
Maddie McDevitt and Yoder were responsible for most of Springfield Township’s draw control wins. McDevitt also stated that the team aimed to take advantage of fastbreaks off draw wins after halftime as another way to counter the zone defense. McDevitt led the Spartans with four goals, and as a senior Catholic University recruit, she also contributed two caused turnovers and four ground balls while playing on both ends of the field.
Yoder, who scored two goals, mentioned a change she and McDevitt made to improve their defense. The two senior midfielders, who play on both ends of the field, were moving out toward midfield whenever goalie Tess Talbot made a stop or the defense made a