If coach Tiffany Cappellano had any concerns about how her Oley Valley field hockey team would respond following a loss in the Berks final, they were quickly dispelled Wednesday.
The Lynx looked sharp from the outset in a 5-0 victory over Biglerville in a District 3 Class 1A first-round game at Oley.
“We had to kind of refocus and adjust some things,” said Cappellano, whose team lost 2-1 to Wilson Saturday in the county title game. “Short memory is basically what I’m saying, making sure that we really come out strong and prove to ourselves that that one game doesn’t define a whole season.
“So, I thought it was a good night. I thought we came out with a lot of energy. They were doing the things that we have been working on the last couple of days of practice and we’ve been talking about and, so yes, I’m proud of them.”
Oley (19-2-1), the top seed and the defending champion, will host eighth-seeded Bishop McDevitt, a 1-0 winner over Littlestown Wednesday, in a quarterfinal game Saturday at 11 a.m.
It will be difficult for the Lynx to match the first half they had Wednesday. Oley had two shots in the opening seconds, just a precursor of things to come against the 16th-seeded Canners (10-8-1).
The Lynx had eight shots and nine corners in the first quarter, and scored their only goal of the period when Alexandra Lopez knocked in a rebound with 13:36 left.
In the second quarter, Oley scored on four of its first five shots to put it away.
Mia Woodard scored the first of her two goals off a pretty cross from Taylor Vaccaro with 14:40 left. Just 1:11 later, Woodard followed an initial shot off the goalie’s pads to make it 3-0.
With 9:38 left, Morgan Snyder dribbled through the defense and got off a shot to make it 4-0. Freshman Ava Walters scored her first varsity goal to make it 5-0 with 8:09 left in the first half and bring on the running clock.
“We just wanted to work hard because after the county game, we obviously didn’t get the outcome that we wanted,” said Woodard, a junior. “We wanted to come back strong and work for that final game again.”
The Lynx, who continued to control play in the second half, finished with advantages of 17-0 in shots and 14-0 in corners. As a bonus, every available player on the roster saw playing time.
“We talked about a lot of things this week in practice, and we really kept our focus on a few things that we really needed to make sure that we cleaned up going into tonight’s game,” Cappellano said. “We just wanted to make sure that our first step into districts was a positive one.”
Source: Berkshire mont