Mt. St. Joe piles up goals

Mount St. Joseph, ranked No. 1 in Southeastern Pennsylvania all season by The Inquirer, continues to score goals at a blistering pace.

The Magic tallied six goals in Monday night's Athletic Association of Catholic Academies championship game victory over Villa Maria Academy. That raised Mount St. Joseph's total to 103 goals in 21 games.

The Magic's only blemish this season was a 3-2 loss on the road to Wyoming Seminary, the 2006 PIAA Class AA state champion.

The first goal came on a new penalty corner play installed recently by Magic coaches Tina Reinprecht and Lois Weber.

"This is a good time, as we're heading into the playoffs, to do things like that," Reinprecht said of the additions to the playbook. "It's something new for the kids to work on."

Reinprecht's daughter, Katie, hinted that a good bit of time was spent on new corners.

"The coaches have got to be happy that the new corners paid off," Katie said.

Katie's three-goal game against the Hurricanes raised her season total to 27. She leads the area in scoring, just ahead of Perkiomen Valley's Leigh Carbutt (26) and Conestoga's Megan Deakins (25).

The Magic have been held to one goal just once this season. Villa Maria forced the Magic to go into overtime before a 1-0 win in the second meeting of the regular season.

Surprise, surprise

There were several surprises in the opening round of the District 1 Class AAA playoffs Monday, but the biggest shocker had to be Unionville's 3-2 overtime win over Souderton.

Sixth-ranked Souderton (11-5) was the No. 6 seed in the playoff bracket - before the loss. Unionville (12-6) went into the game seeded next-to-last in the 28-team field. Unionville coach Caitlin Barbakoff said she read everything she could get her hands on about Souderton. Then she assigned Jackie Buckley and Katelyn Laff to mark Souderton's Nicole Nelson.

"She seemed to be their offense," Barbakoff said. Barbakoff hopes her team can duplicate what Souderton did in the playoffs last year. The Big Red was seeded 21st in the district last fall, but managed to make it to the PIAA state playoffs.

Unionville will play No. 22 seed Council Rock South today in the second round.

Owen J. Roberts (14-8), which lost the Pioneer Athletic Conference championship game to Perkiomen Valley, pulled off an upset when it beat 12th-seeded Bayard Rustin (14-4), 1-0, in double overtime. The Wildcats were seeded 21.

Title game Saturday

Defending champion Archbiship Carroll will square off against Cardinal O'Hara at 1 p.m. Saturday at Arcadia University in the Catholic League championship game.

The Lions (14-1) will be looking for their first title since 2004 (they beat the Patriots.) Carroll (11-3-1) has won the last two championships. In their only regular season meeting this year, O'Hara prevailed 2-1.

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The Inquirer TOP 10

Field Hockey

TeamRecord Records through Monday. Last week's rank in parentheses.

1. Mount St. Joseph (1)20-1

2. Perkiomen Valley (3)18-2

3. Haverford (3) 17-1

4. North Penn (5) 14-2-3

5. Villa Maria Aca. (4) 16-3

6. Council Rock N. (6)14-3-1

7. Strath Haven (7)17-1

8. Neshaminy (9)15-4-1

9. Conestoga (9) 14-4

10. Pennsbury (NR)13-4-3

Under consideration (listed alphabetically): Archbishop Carroll (10-3-2), Cardinal O'Hara (13-1), Central Bucks South (14-3-1), Christopher Dock (12-4), Springfield of Montco (15-4-1).
- Don Beideman