'That's the best I've seen them play,' Manheim Central field hockey coach Morgan Briggs on 2-1 loss to Penn Manor
It’s bounce-back season.
Or, at least, that’s what Penn Manor and Manheim Central field hockey are both hoping.
They had respectable 2022 seasons, which sparked intense competition between the Lancaster-Lebanon League squads in the early part of the Fall 2023 season.
“Though we lost, that’s the best I’ve seen them play because [Penn Manor] brings out the best in us every time we play them,” Manheim Central head coach Morgan Briggs said. “It’s fun to have a challenging opponent who brings out the best in you.”
The game was a don’t blink kind of game. Penn Manor blasted the first goal. Their lead didn’t last long, as Manheim Central refused to lag.
“Before we started the game, we said that we wanted to score first to set the tone,” Penn Manor senior Grace Gerner said. “Chloe [Hook] did just that.”
Less than five minutes into the first half, Hook, a sophomore, scored on a Penn Manor corner.
“I was just thinking how there was no one on me, and I should take the shot, and see where it goes from there,” she said. “And, it worked.”
Manheim Central dug deep to find its resilience led by Ella Brubaker, who scored 16 seconds after Hook’s score. The game remained 1-1 in the first, even after Baron goalie Laci Nelson defended a stroke.
Briggs said her game plan was to force the Comets wide and prevent them from executing “the big hit up the center of the field.”
“I thought overall it was an incredible game,” Briggs said. “The tenacity they showed, and the girls really followed the game plan, especially defensively.”
Going into the second quarter, the Comets were prepared to “stick with it and stay in the game,” Hook said.
“Our word that quarter was ‘intensity,’” Gerner added. “So, we knew that we had to push through, have intensity, aggressiveness, and an attacking presence. We were really working hard in that second quarter to get another goal to get us up.”
It was Gerner who tallied the eventual game-winning goal for Penn Manor on another rocketed corner shot.
“Penn Manor has rock solid corners and scored off of two of them tonight,” Briggs said. “I think our downfall was that we weren’t quite ready for those corner shots the first half."
The rest of the game was a back-and-forth clash of skill, but Penn Manor ultimately came away with a narrow 2-1 win. Penn Manor head coach Rachel Suter said her girls were “gritty, controlled what they could control, and finished when it mattered.”
“We try not to focus on the record, just each game at a time and what we have in front of us,” Suter said. “So, it’s exciting to be undefeated so far, but we’re not letting it change what we do.”
The Comets are currently 6-0.