Radnor hockey advances to district quarterfinals

Radnor extended one of the area's longest field hockey winning streaks to 17 games Wednesday with a 3-0 win over Council Rock North. The victory vaulted the eighth-seeded Red Raiders into Friday's quarterfinals of the District 1 Class AAA playoffs.

Radnor (17-2), the Central League champion, hasn't tasted defeat since losing to Notre Dame on Sept. 8. The Raiders' only other loss was to Archbishop Carroll in their season opener.

As has been typical in many of their games, the Raiders took a little while to get rolling Wednesday. In fact, North recorded four offensive penalty corners in the first 5 1/2 minutes before Radnor could get its offense in gear.

"Fortunately, our defense has been very solid," said Radnor's Helene Caniglia, who scored the second of her team's three goals. "We allowed only one goal in the Central League."

"We just knew we had to get the ball out of there," Radnor midfielder Shelby Sydnor said of the scrambles to get the ball out of the Raiders' circle during the corners.

Since the winning streak began Radnor, has given up just five goals.

"I keep stressing that a game is 60 minutes, and you can't just play the last 40 minutes," said Radnor coach Angel DiRocco. "I was a little nervous when they got those early corners. So far, when we needed it in crunch time they've stepped up. I told them to realize how far they have come and how far they can still go."

After the Indians failed to capitalize on their early corners, Maddy Ostrander gave Radnor its first goal with 11 minutes, 33 seconds to play in the first half on a feed from Ostrander.

Caniglia opened the second half scoring after taking a penalty corner insertion pass and getting the ball right back from Ostrander, driving it past Indians goalie Amanda Krause. Madie Zimmerman closed out the Raiders' scoring in the closing minutes.

In summing up the game, Indians coach Beth Whalin pointed to the early penalty corners that failed to pay off.

"If we had scored on one them, it might have made a difference," she said. "That's the first time in 12 games that we didn't score first. We were playing on [artificial] turf, so we knew the game would be different. I think we've played four games on turf this season."

North, which shared the Suburban One League National Conference championship with Pennsbury, finished the season 14-5-1.

Council Rock North    0 0 - 0

Radnor    1 2 - 3

Goals: R-Maddy Ostrander, Helene Caniglia, Madie Zimmerman.

Saves: CRN-Amanda Krause 7. R-Maddi Shut 5.