Titans right ship against rival Bucks

Both teams needed to get on the winning track.
But it was the Central Bucks South Titans who emerged victorious, defeating Central Bucks West, 5-0, in a Suburban One League Colonial Division matchup on Monday night at CB West’s War Memorial Field.
Julia Cooper got things started for the Titans with a goal off a corner from Erin Smith in the first four minutes. Megan Reilly added to the tally at the end of the first quarter to make it 2-0 Titans, a lead they took into halftime.
Smith put one in early in the third quarter from Bella Schute, and Rebecca Zakrzewski also scored in the third period with an assist from Smith.
Smith had an unassisted goal with 3:04 to ice the win for CB South.
The game was called with 55.6 seconds remaining due to lightning.
“We had a nice season last year and we want to build on that,” said Cooper, a senior. “We lost a lot of key players so it’s important that we prove to other teams that we still have strong players.
“Every time we come to West it’s hard to win. We’ve struggled here. But the past two years it’s felt great to beat them because they are such great competition and this is such a rivalry.”
She will play field hockey at East Stroudsburg.
It was the first victory of the season for CB South, which opened the season with a 3-2 loss to SOL Colonial foe Souderton. The Titans are now 1-1 both in conference and overall.
“It’s so exciting to get our first win of the year,” said Smith, who also plays lacrosse for the Titans. “We worked so hard in the preseason and our first game we were still coming together so this game was great for us because we got a lot more settled.
“I think when we start scoring goals our transition is better and we have a lot more confidence in our offense. Our defense did a good job transitioning to us. We had a lot of good corners so it’s good that we could generate that offense.
“We had a tough loss against Souderton and this was a nice game for us to prove ourselves. I’m excited for the rest of the season.”
Smith plans to play field hockey at New Haven, where she hopes to major in communications.

Sophomore Emma Kraft registered the first shutout of her varsity career in goal for the Titans and teammate Grace Haag made a defensive save.
CB South is back in action on Saturday, taking on SOL Colonial rival Central Bucks East at home at 11 a.m.
CB West held a slight edge in corners, 8-7.
Senior Hannah Maughan made a defensive save in the third quarter for the Bucks and senior goaltender Emily Moering made 12 saves in goal.
“We didn’t want to start the season off this way and this was a big rivalry game, but I think we can bring it back,” said Maughan, a team captain.
“This is a new year for everyone. We lost a lot of seniors but we brought in some new people and I think we’re still trying to come together as a team. I think that’s our biggest struggle right now. We’re all good individual players but we need to play as a team.
“We’re not there yet, but we’ll get there. We still have a lot of games to play and I have confidence in our team.”
Maughan also plays lacrosse for CB West.
The Bucks are 0-2 in conference play and overall, but there’s no reason to panic.
“First of all, credit to South,” CB West coach Dave DeAngelis said. “Their stick skills were strong. We had way too many unforced errors.
“We’ve had some injuries. We didn’t even know what our starting lineup was going to be for this game, we had to shift so many people around. That’s not an excuse. We’re still trying to find chemistry.
“But it comes back to the unforced errors. A few good touches and then one goes bad and it’s a fire drill. That’s what we need to correct. It’s fixable, but we’re in a super tough conference and we need to find ourselves.”
CB West travels to Pennridge on Saturday for an SOL Colonial game at noon.

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