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By JOE PETRUCCI [email protected]
Saturday, October 29, 2005 Page: 3B
WILKES-BARRE TWP. — Dozens of plastic forks, like daggers of disrespect,
were found stuck into the green grass of the Betzler Fields hockey field on
Wednesday.
The forks were accompanied by several eggs. Although the Lady Monarchs had
their suspicions, the Lady Monarchs had no idea who pulled the stunt. The only
thing that seemed to matter was that the Halloween-ish prank was discovered 24
hours before a huge Freedom Conference showdown with Scranton.
It took more than 72 minutes, but King’s finally put a fork in Scranton on
Friday to earn the No. 1 seed and homefield advantage throughout next week’s
conference playoffs.
Crestwood graduate Christina Glenn rifled in a goal off a penalty corner
two minutes, 20 seconds into overtime to give the Lady Monarchs a 3-2 victory.
King’s (13-2, 6-1 Freedom), ranked 19th in the country, also got a pair of
goals from Lindsay Sabo and will host a first-round playoff game for the first
time at 2 p.m. on Wednesday against Wilkes, the lone Freedom team to beat the
Lady Monarchs this season.
“It’s a very big one,” said King’s coach Cheryl Ish. “It gives us the
opportunity to do the semifinal and final on our field. We’d much rather play
on our field.”
While Scranton (10-6, 5-2 Freedom) denied its involvement in “Forkgate,”
the utensils clearly fired up the Lady Monarchs. They used the forks as
substitution cards and stuck several of them into the ground near their bench.
“It was a big motivation, even though we don’t know who did it,” said
Glenn.
King’s got more motivation when Scranton eliminated a 2-0 deficit with a
pair of goals in the final 26 minutes of regulation.
With a little more than two minutes gone by in the 15-minute overtime
period, the Lady Monarchs earned their 17th penalty corner of the game.
Coughlin grad Suzanne Thompson, a senior, took the corner and sent it to
Glenn. From just inside the circle, Glenn fired a low line drive that beat
Scranton goalie Kristina Goetz and banged into the cage just inside the right
post to end a six-game losing streak against the Lady Royals.
“I didn’t look up until I heard it (go in),” said Glenn, who scored her
second goal of the season. “Honestly, we practice that every day and coach
just tells me to nail it. That’s what I did.”
Scranton argued that Glenn was out of the circle and the goal should have
been disallowed, but it stood. It was a tough loss for first-year Lady Royals
coach Colleen Mahon, a former standout at Lake-Lehman in her first big-time
game as a coach back home in the Wyoming Valley. But she was thrilled with her
team’s comeback.
“For not being an offensive team and come back like that, it gives us
momentum,” said Mahon.
Sabo gave King’s a 1-0 lead 4:27 into the game. She scored off a scramble
and an assist from Coughlin product Amanda Jez.
Just 58 seconds into the second half, the Lady Monarchs’ lead became 2-0.
Greater Nanticoke Area graduate Sarah McGrady took the ball in deep in the
left corner and crossed it to the middle, where Jez assisted Sabo on the goal.