Standing in the shadows, with a ball at her feet, a hockey stick in her hand, and a Churchill goalie five meters away, Emily Ellenberger had been there before.
The Quince Orchard senior was focused on the westernmost cage on her home field. The same cage she missed badly last year when her team lost in penalty strokes and saw their state championship dream die.
Thursday afternoon, Ellenberger was there again — same team, same goal, same 4A West Region championship game — but with a twist. This time QO led by four goals in the closing minutes and there was no pressure, just memories.
And that made scoring her third goal of the game that much easier as Ellenberger put an appropriate ribbon on QO’s 5-0 victory over Churchill, sending the Cougars to the state semifinals for the seventh time in nine years.
“We’ve been practicing strokes forever,” said Ellenberger. “Then I get in that situation — the same setting, the same team. We had already won, but I was thinking, ‘I have to get this in. We have to show them we can do this.’”
Ellenberger’s goal capped a five-goal explosion in the second half after a frustrating first half in which QO (14-2) got 12 penalty corners to none for Churchill (9-6), yet failed to score.
Junior Hannah Seligmann broke through 2 minutes, 23 seconds into the second half, scoring her second goal of the season off a penalty corner. Within the next four minutes Ellenberger (16 goals) and sophomore Alissa Peterson (15 goals) scored to increase the lead to 3-0.
“Revenge definitely played a part,” said Seligman. “We definitely wanted to take them. I’m definitely glad to do it 5-0.”
The difference, according to QO coach Jenna Ries, was teamwork.
“We passed the ball,” said Ries. “Pass and shot, pass and shot. We’ve talked about that for two weeks.”
Semi-Sweet
» QO will play the winner of the Whitman-Blake game in the state semifinals Wednesday on Broadneck’s artificial turf field.
» QO has won one state title.
» Churchill lost in the state semifinals last year to South River.
