Girls Soccer - Norwin vs Penn-Trafford

Norwin Girls Soccer Sweeps Season Series, Takes Section Title, with 4-1 Win over Penn-Trafford 

As sure an annual sign of autumn as leaves falling from the trees, you don't need a Farmer's Almanac to predict that Norwin and Penn-Trafford will meet to decide the WPIAL 4A Section 3 Girls Soccer championship every year at this time. The two rival teams have a history of finishing 1-2, or sharing first place, in all but one of the past 20 years. The one year they were not both 1-2 finishers was 2006, when Hempfield finished behind champion Norwin. Since then this battle of the Hatfield and the McCoys of Section 3 has been all about Norwin and Penn-Trafford. The Lady Warriors got the best of Norwin in last year's three meetings, a regular season tie and a Penn-Trafford win in section games, and Penn-Trafford beating Norwin on overtime for the WPIAL title in their third matchup. But Norwin bounced back from the WPIAL title loss last year and ran the PIAA gauntlet to win the state title, a nice vindication for the losses in WPIAL play. In this season's first matchup of the two soccer powers, Norwin won 4-2 at Warrior Stadium. Tonight's battle on a damp, cool evening on Norwin's turf would decide if the section title would be shared or go outright to Norwin.  

The Lady Knights opened the scoring with a Megan Sigut goal in the 11th minute of the game. The teams banged and battled back and forth until almost halftime when Katelyn Kauffman booted a shot behind Warriors goalkeeper Megan Giesey for the 2-0 lead at intermission. 

The Lady Warriors cut the deficit to one early in the second half when captain Kiley Dugan neatly dropped a free kick between the crossbar and the outstretched arm of a leaping Knights keeper Liz Waszkiewicz in the 37th minute. But that's as close to Norwin as the Lady Warriors would get. An accidental Warriors deflection into their own goal in the 68th minute, followed shortly after by a Paloma Swankler goal for Norwin in the 70th minute, and the Lady Knights would complete the season sweep of Penn-Trafford with a 4-1 win and the section title. 

Norwin improves to 12-0-0 in conference, 14-2-0 overall. Penn-Trafford's conference record goes to 10-2-0, overall 12-4-0. Both teams will await their seeding in the upcoming WPIAL playoffs.   
 

Watch this link for a full gallery of action photos available for purchase or sharing the day after the game.