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KINGSTON — As a play-making table setter, Brigid Wood didn’t see the need to shoot much during the regular season.
A wave of emotion from going back to the state playoffs engulfed her, though.
And it carried Wood and her Coughlin teammates back to the PIAA Class 3A quarterfinals one last time.
Wood opened up with a hat trick Tuesday, and as it turned out, Coughlin needed every one of those scores to hold off hard-charging Central Bucks West 5-4 in a state playoff opener at Nesbitt Field.
“I feel like I can score in the regular season,” Wood said. “((But) I like to hang back. In a game like this, we weren’t scoring at first.”
She sure solved that problem.
Wood rifled the game’s first goal into the net just under four minutes after the start, slammed another score to open a two-goal lead for Coughlin later in the opening half, then began the second half with a goal that gave the Crusaders a 4-1 lead.
“When it comes to a game like this, the others look to her,” Coughlin coach Colleen Wood said. “She really wants to win.”
That win appeared pretty secure when Kyra Wozniak answered the Bucks’ second goal with her second score of the game, building Coughlin’s lead to 5-2 with 12:54 to play.
With a lock-down defense that’s pitched eight shutouts this season, the Crusaders (20-1 overall) seemed to be cruising into Saturday’s state quarterfinals against the winner of Wednesday’s game between Emmaus and Methacton.
Then things started sliding fast for Coughlin in a light, game-long rain at Nesbitt Field.
Taylor Mason scored for Central Bucks West with more than 11 minutes to play. The Bucks used a goal by Cadara Smith to cut their deficit to a single goal with 2:38 to play. And in between, a Central Bucks West shot that was speeding toward an open area of Coughlin’s cage was inadvertently knocked away by another Bucks player who had her back turned at the goal mouth.
Disaster averted for Coughlin.
Barely.
“I felt like we got way too comfortable. We’re just lucky that it didn’t stop our win,” said Brigid Wood, the team’s standout senior who is slated to officially sign her national letter-of-intent to play field hockey for Boston College on Wednesday morning. “One more goal (by Manheim Central) and I don’t know how we would have come out of that. “
The Crusaders felt fortunate they never had to find out.
Wood, who was part of a Coughlin team that was kept from states last season with an agonizing, one-goal loss in the District 2 title game, kept the ball on her stick for most of the last 10 seconds – until it was too late for Manheim Central to make one last move toward the goal.
That finished a resilient late-game effort by Coughlin’s defense, which kept Manheim Central at bay while turning away a few desperate charges over the final minutes.
“We came out strong,” Colleen Wood said. “I don’t know they (the Crusaders) just took it for granted, took it too easy, but they didn’t stay on their game like they could have. We got a little sloppy at the end.”
The Crusaders have plenty incentive to clean things up.
They’ll make their third appearance in the Class 3A state quarterfinals over the past four seasons, but haven’t advanced any further during that span.
“My freshman and sophomore years, we won our first game of states,” Brigid Wood said. “But we lost in the next game both times.
“I’d like to get one more win, at least.”