By Tom Robinson, NEPASportsNation.com
WHITEHALL – While Line Mountain was unable to get past the Wyoming Seminary defense to direct a single shot toward the goal Tuesday, the Blue Knights were firing off shots from many different directions.
Ella Barbacci and Isabella Pisano scored twice each while two more Wyoming Seminary players were involved in multiple goals as the Blue Knights reached their fifth straight state final with a 6-0 rout of Line Mountain in a Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association Class A field hockey semifinal.
Wyoming Seminary will try to become the first Pennsylvania field hockey team to win four straight state championships when it faces Oley Valley Saturday morning at 10 on the same Zephyr Sports Complex field.
Barbacci scored the game’s first and last goals, both on assists from Anna Mozeleski.
Pisano scored the second and third goals.
After Pisano scored with 1:35 left in the third quarter for a 3-0 lead, Wyoming Seminary broke the game open with three more goals in the first 6:11 of the fourth quarter.
“We just needed to get the momentum back,” said Pisano, who scored the game-winning goal in last year’s state final as a sophomore.
Marta Maristany scored the fourth goal and assisted Emma Watchilla with the fifth before the Mozeleski-Barbacci combination produced again.
“I think we played well in the second half,” Wyoming Seminary coach Karen Klassner said. “The kids did what they had to do.
“It just took us a little while to get started.”
Wyoming Seminary steadily increased the offensive push while outshooting Line Mountain, 25-0.
The Blue Knights took four shots in the first quarter, six in the second, seven in the third and eight in the fourth. They had a 12-0 advantage in penalty corners until the final 4:05 and finished with a 13-2 lead.
Barbacci opened the scoring on the game’s first shot with 10:04 left in the first quarter. Mozeleski got a pass all the way through to her on the left side from well outside the circle on the right. Barbacci took it from there, unleashing one of the blistering shots she has used to score eight times in three state playoff games.
Pisano worked the area in front of the cage for goals with 22.8 seconds left in the first quarter and then late in the third when she scored on a rebound of her own attempt by switching from the strong side the first time to a reverse move on the follow-up attempt.
Maristany, a Spanish exchange student, took it from there.
“It was a corner and I’m supposed to get the rebound,” she said. “But the ball came to me and I shot it.
“I wasn’t expecting it to go in.”
By then, it seemed like everything was going in.
Watchilla and Barbacci added goals 1:18 apart to break the game open.
