NORTHAMPTON — What do you say to a team where winning is less of a goal, and more of an expectation?
That was the challenge for Hanna Doerner after Pleasant Valley girls lacrosse lost the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference Championship to Nazareth 10-8 Tuesday afternoon at Northampton High School.
Pleasant Valley hadn’t lost in the conference tournament since its best player, senior Rylee Rath, was in middle school, and the Bears just finished another regular season going undefeated in the EPC, which included a 10-6 win over the Blue Eagles.
It was uncharted territoy for everyone on the roster, but Doerner, knowing that PV has a district tournament game to prepare for, tried to give her team a positive dose of reality after the game.
“Our season is not over,” Doerner said regarding the message to the team. “A lot of them haven’t lost in this game before today, but the other thing to remember is that, for a lot of them, this is their first time in this situation. Most of our team are first-year varsity starters.
“We just made too many mistakes and couldn’t come up with the win.”
Pleasant Valley defintely felt the heat at halftime as Nazareth led 8-4 at the break. Rath was almost exclusively responsible for the Bears’ offense, scoring 3 of her team’s goals in the first quarter and leading her team in scoring for the game. They did respond early in the second half, scoring three consecutive goals to cut the deficit to one.
It also wasn’t a shortage of chances – Pleasant Valley had a healthy amount of free positions with an opportunity to close the gap and possibly take the lead. But whether it was a missed shot or a sputtered offensive possession, the team could not convert.
“We shot the ball into the goalkeeper’s stick every time,” Doerner said. “Part of that is on me, I got to help them out a little bit more. But they’ve got to put the ball in the back of the cage.
“The goal isn’t to shoot on every free position; sometimes we’re trying to set something up. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but the execution just didn’t land.”
Nazareth scored a goal late in the third quarter and one more in the fourth before the final buzzer sounded.
Now the attention turns to the district playoffs, where the Bears also have another active streak as they are searching for their third consecutive district title. Losing is never fun or ideal, but how the conference tournament ended could be the catalyst Doerner’s squad needs to make it back to the state tournament.
“I think it’s super important to feel your emotions, and the biggest thing is what you do with them,” Doerner said. “They are sad, angry, frustrated, as they should be. They just lost a championship game. But what matters is how we bounce back from it.”
Pleasant Valley will open the district playoffs against its EPC semifinal opponent, Liberty, on May 15 at Pleasant Valley. The winner of that game will face the winner of Easton and Parkland in the semifinals.
This article originally appeared on Pocono Record: Pleasant Valley girls lacrosse falls short of 5th straight EPC title