PALMYRA – A true test of endurance and skill, the combination of seven-on-seven overtime periods and one-vs-one shootouts are also an extreme measure of heart, desire and character. They place a whole different twist on the concept of ‘survive and advance’.
On a beautiful Wednesday evening on the turf of Palmyra High School’s OAL Sports Complex, Annville-Cleona came through when the chips were really down to edge Biglerville by the slimmest of margins, in the opening round of the District Three Class A field hockey playoffs. After the Little Dutchmen and Canners had fought tooth-and-nail to a 1-1 draw through 60 minutes of regulation and two grueling ten-minute, golden-goal OT sessions, Annville-Cleona outscored Biglerville 3-1 in the ensuing fielder player-against-goalie tiebreaking portion of the match.
During the one-on-one shootouts, freshman Tori Cisney and senior Erin Schrader gave the Little Dutchmen a 2-0 advantage by finishing good stickhandling with precise shots. Then, sophomore Grace Francis completed the job for Annville-Cleona, with a nifty little reverse flip into the cage.
But the real hero for the Little Dutchmen may have been senior goaltender Grace Coleman who stood tall and turned away three of Biglerville’s four shootout attempts.
“We’ve been practicing them, just because we don’t do them in the regular season,” said Annville-Cleona head coach Carrie Gingrich of the one-one shootouts. “For the past three or four days, we’ve been working on them. We had a pretty good idea of which girls we were going to use.
“They used to use strokes to determine which team would advance,” continued Gingrich. “But I don’t think that was a good indicator of who was the better team. I think the shootout is more fair. It’s more game-like. For the goalie, strokes are really hard. You can prepare more for this.”
With the triumph, sixth-seeded Annville-Cleona moved to 14-5 on the season and into Saturday’s quarterfinal round of the District Three Class A tournament, against the winner between Lancaster Mennonite and Bishop McDevitt. With the top five finishers from District Three qualifying for the PIAA Class A postseason, the result also assured the Little Dutchmen at least two more contests this season.
Annville-Cleona was making its sixth straight appearance in the District Three playoffs.
The 11th-seeded Canners concluded their campaign at 15-6.
“Seven-on-seven full field, it’s tough,” said Gingrich of the two ten-minute overtime periods. “We have a couple of senior field players who were tired, but I knew weren’t coming out. We’re in good shape. But no matter what, they were tired.”
Down a goal, Annville-Cleona tied the score at one, with 3:28 left in the third quarter.
Going right, Schrader shot a ball across her body that Canner netminder Gabby Rogerson knocked down. But senior Braetan Peters was right there for the Little Dutchmen and she jammed the rebound home.
But with the flow of play going back and forth, neither side was able to come up with the game-winner during the final quarter of regulation and the two seven-on-seven overtime periods.
“Overall, we did well,” said Gingirch. “In the first half, the nerves hit us. We have a couple of younger girls. They were nervous and you could tell. But in the second half, we played much better.
“We really didn’t know much about them (the Canners) at all,” continued Gingrich. “They don’t play in the Lancaster-Lebanon League. You try to watch them during warm-ups and try to figure some things out. But they had a couple of really nice players.”
Biglerville had assumed a 1-0 lead off a corner play 4:27 into the contest. From the right, Hannah Naylor crossed a ball through the Little Dutchmen goal mouth to teammate Alyssa Smith, who made no mistakes from point-blank range.
“It is an accomplishment,” said Gingrich of her team’s string of District playoff appearances. “But you don’t want to get used to it, you don’t want to take it for granted. You don’t want to expect it.
“It’s always nice to win the first game,” Gingrich added. “Now the goal is to make states. Anyone can win on any given day, but… It’s one game at a time.”
According to the final tally, Biglerville out shot Annville-Cleona 11-10. The Canners inserted eight penalty corners compared to the Little Dutchmen’s six.
| Date | Opponents | Outcomes | |
| 9/07 4:00 pm | Lancaster Mennonite at Annville-Cleona | 2 1 | Nonleague |
| 9/09 4:00 pm | Annville-Cleona at Lancaster Country Day | 4 0 | Nonleague |
| 9/13 4:00 pm | Annville-Cleona at Elco | 0 2 | League |
| 9/14 4:00 pm | McCaskey at Annville-Cleona | 2 3 | League |
| 9/18 10:00 am | Annville-Cleona at Middletown | 8 0 | Nonleague |
| 9/20 4:00 pm | Garden Spot at Annville-Cleona | 1 3 | League |
| 9/22 4:00 pm | Annville-Cleona at Lebanon | 2 0 | League |
| 9/24 4:00 pm | Elco at Annville-Cleona | 1 2 | League |
| 9/25 10:00 am | Annville-Cleona at Kutztown | 7 1 | Nonleague |
| 9/28 4:00 pm | Annville-Cleona at McCaskey | 2 1 | League |
| 9/30 4:00 pm | Solanco at Annville-Cleona | 1 4 | League |
| 10/02 10:00 am | Annville-Cleona at Garden Spot | 1 2 | League |
| 10/05 4:00 pm | Lebanon at Annville-Cleona | 1 3 | League |
| 10/06 4:00 pm | Berks Catholic at Annville-Cleona | 3 2 | Nonleague |
| 10/08 4:00 pm | Annville-Cleona at Northern Lebanon | 5 0 | Nonleague |
| 10/14 4:00 pm | Annville-Cleona at Solanco | 4 0 | League |
| 10/16 2:00 pm | Annville-Cleona at Manheim Township | 0 3 | League Playoff |
| 10/27 7:00 pm | Biglerville Annville-Cleona at Palmyra | District Playoff |
| A | School | W | L | T | Rating | TWP | OWP | TWPW | OWPW | TWPL | OWPL |
| 1*** | Oley Valley | 16- | 1- | 0 | 0.759856 | 0.949367 | 0.528231 | 15.00 | 155.30 | 0.80 | 138.70 |
| 2*** | Greenwood | 16- | 1- | 0 | 0.747068 | 0.945946 | 0.503995 | 14.00 | 151.40 | 0.80 | 149.00 |
| 3*** | Lancaster Mennonite | 15- | 1- | 0 | 0.704742 | 0.928571 | 0.431173 | 13.00 | 118.40 | 1.00 | 156.20 |
| 4*** | Boiling Springs | 16- | 2- | 0 | 0.681423 | 0.869048 | 0.452105 | 14.60 | 148.20 | 2.20 | 179.60 |
| 5*** | Bermudian Springs | 16- | 2- | 0 | 0.654897 | 0.867470 | 0.395085 | 14.40 | 125.40 | 2.20 | 192.00 |
| 6*** | Annville-Cleona | 13- | 4- | 0 | 0.601613 | 0.755814 | 0.413146 | 13.00 | 123.20 | 4.20 | 175.00 |
| 7*** | Littlestown | 14- | 4- | 0 | 0.590071 | 0.743902 | 0.402055 | 12.20 | 125.20 | 4.20 | 186.20 |
| 8*** | Susquehanna Township | 14- | 4- | 0 | 0.576017 | 0.744444 | 0.370162 | 13.40 | 118.60 | 4.60 | 201.80 |
| 9*** | Newport | 10- | 6- | 1 | 0.553547 | 0.571429 | 0.531693 | 9.60 | 157.70 | 7.20 | 138.90 |
| 10*** | Schuylkill Valley | 9- | 6- | 1 | 0.533324 | 0.546667 | 0.517017 | 8.20 | 142.80 | 6.80 | 133.40 |
| 11*** | Biglerville | 13- | 5- | 0 | 0.529429 | 0.647059 | 0.385660 | 11.00 | 122.10 | 6.00 | 194.50 |
| 12*** | Susquenita | 11- | 6- | 1 | 0.515761 | 0.561798 | 0.459494 | 10.00 | 141.80 | 7.80 | 166.80 |
| 13*** | Northern Lebanon | 7- | 9- | 0 | 0.455074 | 0.395062 | 0.528422 | 6.40 | 141.30 | 9.80 | 126.10 |
| 14*** | Bishop McDevitt (3) | 9- | 8- | 0 | 0.452571 | 0.471264 | 0.429723 | 8.20 | 133.30 | 9.20 | 176.90 |
| 15 | Kennard Dale | 9- | 8- | 0 | 0.426234 | 0.476744 | 0.364499 | 8.20 | 107.60 | 9.00 | 187.60 |
| 16 | Hamburg | 9- | 9- | 0 | 0.415711 | 0.466667 | 0.353432 | 8.40 | 110.20 | 9.60 | 201.60 |
| 17 | Octorara | 8- | 9- | 1 | 0.412470 | 0.440860 | 0.377770 | 8.20 | 109.10 | 10.40 | 179.70 |
| 18 | Lancaster Catholic | 9- | 8- | 0 | 0.412400 | 0.481928 | 0.327422 | 8.00 | 96.00 | 8.60 | 197.20 |
| 19 | Wyomissing | 6- | 9- | 2 | 0.397953 | 0.370787 | 0.431157 | 6.60 | 121.50 | 11.20 | 160.30 |
| 20 | Hanover (3) | 7- | 10- | 1 | 0.367418 | 0.357895 | 0.379058 | 6.80 | 119.10 | 12.20 | 195.10 |
| 21 | Camp Hill | 5- | 12- | 0 | 0.353368 | 0.266667 | 0.459336 | 4.80 | 141.20 | 13.20 | 166.20 |
| 22 | Eastern York | 5- | 10- | 2 | 0.352029 | 0.297753 | 0.418367 | 5.30 | 123.00 | 12.50 | 171.00 |
| 23 | Tulpehocken | 5- | 13- | 0 | 0.303249 | 0.219780 | 0.405267 | 4.00 | 126.20 | 14.20 | 185.20 |
| 24 | Lancaster Country Day School | 2- | 12- | 1 | 0.301200 | 0.132530 | 0.507353 | 2.20 | 131.10 | 14.40 | 127.30 |
| 25 | Brandywine Heights | 3- | 13- | 0 | 0.271607 | 0.155556 | 0.413448 | 2.80 | 115.60 | 15.20 | 164.00 |
| 26 | Fairfield | 3- | 12- | 0 | 0.268936 | 0.156627 | 0.406203 | 2.60 | 108.70 | 14.00 | 158.90 |
| 27 | Kutztown | 2- | 15- | 1 | 0.241687 | 0.120000 | 0.390415 | 2.40 | 122.20 | 17.60 | 190.80 |
| 28 | Delone Catholic | 1- | 16- | 0 | 0.235648 | 0.060606 | 0.449588 | 1.20 | 131.10 | 18.60 | 160.50 |
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