Council Rock South’s girls soccer team has been quietly making noise.
Since their opening-season 2-1 loss to Pennridge, the Hawks are unbeaten in thirteen games. Only CB East, Downingtown West, and Downingtown East have longer active unbeaten streaks in District 1.
On Saturday morning, CR South continued their run of good form by defeating District 11 powerhouse Parkland 3-0. Riley O’Halloran scored in the first half, and Guilianna Conetta and Lylah Day scored in the second half to lead the Hawks to victory. Madison Hyams earned the shutout for South, the team’s tenth of the season.
Council Rock South (11-1-2) has been climbing up the District 1 power rankings in recent weeks with a string of wins, among them victories over CR North (14th), CB South (15th), and Springfield (1st: 2A), but the latest win over Parkland (12-3-1) has put the Hawks into the district’s top-five for the first time this season and closing in on securing a top seed for the playoffs.
Last season, South beat Parkland 1-0, and in 2024 the teams tied 2-2. In 2023, Parkland defeated South in the first round of the 4A state tournament.
In a game between two potential state qualifiers, South asserted its physical style early and often, wearing down Parkland down over eighty minutes by scoring timely goals and shutting preventing Parkland’s offense from venturing far past the midfield line. Applying relentless pressure in Parkland’s defensive end for long stretches at a time, eventually the hosts broke through late in the first half to score the goal they needed then in the second half, made it extremely difficult for the visitors to mount any kind of attack to get back in the game.
South answered the opening whistle by creating several chances from distance. Anna Horn pulled Day’s layoff wide from outside the box, and minutes later she had a strike from even further out that also went wide. Eleven minutes in, Conetta stretched the Parkland defense down the right side and fed Day in front, but after Day brought the ball down through traffic, she pushed a toe-poke wide. Shortly after, Lianna Shikhvarger made a run down the right side and continued beating defenders well into the box before laying the ball off to Day, who blasted the ball over the top after an awkward bounce.
South kept getting closer, and every wave of attack led to numerous second chances due to some outstanding defending by midfielders Ruby Bross and Brooke Pavlow, and defenders Kaitlin Hickey and Krissy Phillip, who seemed to win every second ball and immediately feed another South attack. South came closest in the 27th minute when Horn took down a cleared header from inside the box and smacked the post with a volley that Parkland keeper Hannah Hertzog could only watch. A minute Pavlow won the ball outside the penalty area on a counter-press, and Claire Vizza’s shot found the target, but didn’t have enough power to beat Hertzog.
South broke through with four minutes remaining in the first half. Pavlow reached a failed Parkland clearance outside the box first and slipped a ball back to Shikhvarger, who whipped in a cross toward the back post to O’Halloran. With Hertzog charging out of her goal to make a play and a Parkland defender in good positioning to win the header, O’Halloran beat them both to the ball, and her header found the open net for the 1-0 lead
In the final minutes, South continued searching for a second. Shikhvarger won another Parkland clearance and tested Hertzog from distance, and Conetta broke free again down the right but missed her teammates in the box with a cross, but as South went into the break with the one-goal lead, they played as if a second goal could arrive at any time.
A minute into the second half, South jumped on the visitors from the start, and O’Halloran fired a volley off a corner on goal that Hertzog saved. Four minutes later, Horn dribbled around the left side and fed O’Halloran again, but Hertzog made another save at the near post. Shortly after, Conetta beat her defender down the right side and sent a cross toward the top of the six that Bross just missed with a surging header.
In the 62nd minute, South scored their second goal. Pavlow drove a corner toward the front six that Lorelei Hanratty and Horn kept alive with put-back headers. The ball fell to Conetta at the back post, and she volleyed it into the net from close range to extend South’s lead. Conetta, a freshman forward, has now scored in three-straight games.
The ball stayed in Parkland’s end for much of the final fifteen minutes, and South came close a number of times on corners. In the 74th minute, Hertzog made a sprawling stop to deny Sophia Smith on a mid-breakaway, then three minutes later Hertzog stopped Day on a similar break. In the 79th minute, Day added a third for South when she ran onto a dangerous through-ball from Bross and beat Hertzog to the near post to finish off the game. Day also scored in South’s 2-1 win over Pennsbury on Thursday.
“They’re traditionally a great program, and they’re again coming in this year with twelve wins already under their belt, it’s good for us,” South coach Nick Heim said about the win against another quality opponent. “If we’re going to prepare for a run, we have to play a team that we don’t know a ton about, and they don’t know a ton about us. It’s good to get that experience.”
Heim said that he knew Parkland had played a game yesterday against rival Allentown Central Catholic and getting a fast start was going to be important, but his team also took the opportunity to keep the pressure up in the second half, eventually tiring the Parkland defenders. “Al [Parkland coach Al Haddad] does a good job with them, but he said to me after the game it’s really tough to defend you for eighty minutes. And we didn’t score early in the second half, but I think he saw that we were able to keep those chances going.”
South has four games remaining, beginning with a big division game against Neshaminy Tuesday night. “They’re a tough team every year,” Heim said. “It’s always a battle no matter what the records are. I know Josh [van Reed] is going to have them ready.”
South then wraps up their season against league opponents Truman and Bensalem, with a non-league game against defending 2A state champs Archbishop Wood in between. South has already done well against some good non-league opponents, with their only loss against a Pennridge team that is also climbing up the District 1 power rankings. After going eight games without conceding a goal, South gave up three in the previous four games until the Parkland shutout. But as well as South is playing, Heim said his team can get even better going forward.
“I think we can still put together a cleaner eighty, but you hope that strength of schedule that you play all year allows you to hit that stride as you’re hitting the playoffs.”
