By Harry Chaykun
Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 5/31/23
The long wait is over at Mount St. Joseph Academy.
The Mount rallied in the second half and knocked off two-time defending champion Class 2A District I champion Bishop Shanahan, 10-9, at West Chester Rustin High Thursday to claim its first District 1 title.
Mount St. Joseph (16-6), the No. 7 seed, outscored No. 5 Shanahan (14-7-1), 4-2, in the second half, blanking the defending champions for the final 13 minutes of the game.
A goal by senior Ava Rossi with 5:37 to play got the Magic even at 9-9, then senior Kate Donovan set up Rossi for the deciding goal 1:52 later. It was Rossi’s third score of the contest.
As district champion, Mount St. Joseph will host District 3’s third-place team – Lower Dauphin or York Catholic – in the opening round of the PIAA Tournament Tuesday. Bishop Shanahan’s first state opponent will be the District 11 champion Southern Lehigh.
“Big goals just don’t happen,” Rossi, who will attend Fairfield University and play club lacrosse, said. “We felt we had what was needed to win and we believed in ourselves.
“We ran one of our best set plays, which is designed to get someone open. I was glad the shot went in.”
Katie Westmoreland scored 30 seconds into the game to put Mount up, and Shanahan never led until Caitlyn Hubiak (three goals) scored 32 seconds before halftime. The Eagles’ lead grew to two 34 seconds into the second half on Hubiak’s third goal of the game before freshman Gabby Clair and Donovan (2G, 5 draw controls) countered for the Magic. Silvia Baptista put Shanahan up one last time with 13 minutes left, but then Rossi tied it.
Senior goalie Annie Shields, who is headed to the University of Southern California, made 12 saves and got solid defensive support from her sister, junior Quinn Shields, as well as freshman Emily Holmes, Donovan, Kiersten Pumilia, junior Maggie Rezza, who scored twice in the first half, and sophomore Meghan Holmes.
“Since our sophomore year, after Covid wiped out our freshman season, we’ve been working for this,” Annie Shields said. “People know The Mount for other sports. We wanted people to talk about us as a lacrosse school.
“Each year we’ve gone farther and farther. This is the perfect way for things to finish up in districts for our seniors and to be rewarded for all that we have worked for. We lost to Shanahan twice last year, but we believed we could beat them this year.”
Quinn Shields backed up what her sister said.
“We talked about how much we wanted this game at halftime,” she said. “We had a feeling that if we cut back on our mistakes and concentrated on stopping their good shooters, we could be fine.”
In the first half, The Mount picked up three yellow card violations.
“We couldn’t get the fourth or we would have been short-handed the rest of the way,” Quinn Shields said. “We moved our midfielder (Pumilia) back and she really helped us on defense. We had put this new defense in for our Upper Moreland game knowing we would be needing it if we played Shanahan.”
Mount head coach Becky Cartee-Haring, who played at Rutgers, had plenty to say about her goalkeeper and her defenders.
“Annie is always so strong,” she said. “She’s going to do a great job out at USC. We’ve really worked on our new zone defense the last two games. I saw them (Shanahan) when they beat Strath Haven last week and knew what liked to do. We wanted to try to make it hard for them to be able to do those things today.
“We expected to get better this year. Last year we lost in the third round of districts and the second round of states. When I took over the program, I asked the girls what they wanted to do and they have shown how much they wanted it this year. They’ve been great.”
Shanahan coach Kacy Small gave the credit to the Mount.
“We had a really big opportunity in front of us and unfortunately we came up a little short,” he said. “We didn’t play our best game when we needed too. Mount St. Joe had a game plan and they executed when they needed too, they were the better team today.”
Mount St. Joseph 10, Bishop Shanahan 9
Mount St. Joseph 6 4 – 10
Bishop Shanahan 7 2 – 9
Mount
Kiersten Pumila 1gb
Kate Donovan 5dc, 2g, 1a,
Maggie Rezza 3dc, 2g, 2gb
Amelia Clair 1g, 1gb
Katie Westmoreland 1dc, 1g, 1a,
Sophie Peters 1gb
Ava Rossi 3g, 1a
Devin Loome 1a
Emily Holmes 1a
Kat Zampirri 1gb
Gabby Clair 1dc, 1g
Quinn Shields 1gb, 1cto
Annie Shields 12 saves
Bishop Shanahan
Caitlyn Hubiak 3G
Silvia Baptiste 2G 1A
Annabelle Wiedel 2G
Gillian Greco 1G
Brooke Choi 1G
Amelia Benner 1A
Stella Dambro 1A
Izzy Sawicki 5 saves
