RADNOR, Pa. - The Rosemont women's soccer team had their post-season hopes dashed tonight, reinforcing that the CSAC Championship runs through Cabrini.
Tonight, the Cavaliers once again had the Ravens' number. Unfortunately for the Ravens, the head-to-head winning streak for the Cavaliers vs. Rosemont continued on Cabrini's home turf as Rosemont would end up on the short side of a 2-0 final score in the CSAC Semifinal match. The #6-seeded Ravens ended their season with a 7-12-1 overall record, while the #1-seeded Cabrini (10-5-3) will host #2-seeded Gwynedd Mercy on Saturday. The Griffins defeated Marywood by a 5-1 score in the other Semifinal game today.
The comeback that the Ravens forged in the Quarterfinal game at #3-seeded Centenary wouldn't be replicated this evening, though the team fought hard through the entire contest.
The Cavaliers scored what would prove to be the game-winning goal in the 28th minute when Meghan Martin fed Dana Peterson for her 5th goal of the season. In the second half Cabrini made the Rosemont comeback task twice as difficult when Brittany Runyen scored her 2nd goal of the season off an assist from teammate Allie Vallen to make the score 2-0 in the 71st minute.
Although the Ravens were shut out tonight, they would put together many more shots and hold Cabrini to fewer shots in the CSAC Semifinal than they did in the regular season game that pitted the two sides against each other, when the Cavs outshot the Ravens 15-1. Tonight the Ravens mustered six shots, three from rookie Victoria Kasper (all three on-goal), but the Cabrini keeper, Alivia Dietsch, was equal to the task in earning the shutout. Cabrini took 12 shots in the game, six on goal, with Rosemont keeper Andrea Dossantos saving four.
When asked about the effort that his team put forth tonight, and what they did differently compared to their regular-season game against Cabrini, Head Coach Aaron Tritch commented that he changed from a 4-3-3 to a 4-4-2 to cover what he felt were the strongest Cavalier players, in the front and middle. "I think Sav and Jen played a good game tonight. Although we did get three shots on goal, they were from a longer distance, and so didn't really test the Cabrini keeper. The shots for both teams were even in the second half tonight, and we were only trailing by a goal, but we took our foot off the throttle and gave up a goal off of a rebound in the last 20 minutes."
Asked how his team can get past Cabrini in the future, Tritch said, "It's the history of their program being in the conference final the last five years. They're used to getting there, and they expect to win. That experience is something that's escaped us in the last five years. We need to get over that hump once, score a first goal, and then I think we'll be able to compete and win against them more often."
Defining his team, coach said, "It's a group that started on separate pages and different chapters in the book, and they worked together to reach the one peak on the top of the mountain. I think our paths started to converge about 3/4 of the way through the season, and we all started to get on the same chapter. This group that is mostly young, getting to know each other, being on campus together and getting to know each other more, I think they'll end up on the same page. At some point we'd have nine or ten freshman on the field. They're good soccer players, but they need to work and play together with each other to improve their play as a team."
"I'm proud of their effort. Individually they tried really, really hard. They started to realize how powerful they were, and it changed the way they carried themselves on the field."
