The defending District 1 champions Pennridge made a huge statement in a 2-1 upset win over defending state champions and district No. 1 CB East on Thursday night. Junior Mikayla Loux scored two second-half goals to cancel out Taylor Roumy’s first-half strike, avenging a 5-3 loss to East earlier in the season. Pennridge moved up to No. 2 in the District 1 power rankings and into a vital top-four spot in the playoffs with one week remaining in the regular season.
With the win, Pennridge snapped East’s 21-game unbeaten streak going back to last year’s district quarterfinal loss to CB South, while at the same, extended their own winning streak to eight games. Pennridge’s only losses came within a span of a week against SOL Colonial division foes East, Souderton (No. 10), and CB South (No. 13). This season, the Rams have knocked off five teams in the top-16, and during their streak, they’ve posted a goal differential of +18.
“It’s awesome to win on Senior Night,” senior captain Peyton Rabinowitz said after the game. “CB East is a great team, so to give them their first loss, I don’t think there’s a better feeling right now.” Rabinowitz anchored Pennridge’s backline, covering a ton of ground while interrupting several East scoring chances. Rabinowitz, who plays for HEX FC with some of the East players, will continue her career at Christopher Newport University next fall.
Rabinowitz scored in the previous game against East, where East pulled away at the end, however in this game Pennridge held the momentum and the emotional edge throughout the second half and until the final whistle. “We knew we let off a little bit, so we said we wanted to play a full eighty minutes of soccer, hard and through.”
Rabinowitz also said the team wanted to win for her fellow senior captain, Gabriella Howley, who went down in the first half with a suspected knee injury. “It was a full team effort. There was no one on this field that wasn’t giving 110%.”
Following an emotional pre-game ceremony honoring eleven Pennridge seniors, the visitors went on the offensive in the early minutes. Two minutes in, Kiera Sleicher sent a dangerous in-swinging corner that several East players missed in front before Howley cleared it away. Four minutes later, East missed a golden chance when Liz Mooney chased a long ball toward goal, and after winning a battle between Rabinowitz and keeper Liv Buckman, she slipped a pass to Taylor Roumy at the spot. But Roumy’s shot smashed the underside of the bar and bounced away.
In the 8th minute, Roumy beat several defenders down the left side and found Mooney at the spot, but Mooney scuffed a bouncing volley that also hit a teammate before Buckman made the save. Four minutes later, Mattie Williams sent an early cross from the right that rebounded to Sleicher at the top of the box, but the East midfielder pulled her shot wide.
While East maintained a majority of possession in the first fifteen minutes, Pennridge began to get numbers forward and break up East’s attacking waves. Loux had her first chance in the 17th minute, but East keeper Maddie Thompson saved her shot at the near post. In the 22nd minute, Howley got around East defender Cece Hayes and blasted a shot that Thompson saved and Ella Roumy cleared away before the Pennridge strikers could jump on the rebound. On the ensuing corner, Rabinowitz played Kylie Manville at the corner of the box, and Manville had two shots, the second one making it through to goal before Thompson made another save.
East found the opening goal in the 26th minute. Taylor Roumy received the ball in front of the Pennridge back line with space, split two defenders down the left channel, and fired a low shot to the far post that skipped past Buckman to give East a 1-0 lead. Roumy extended her goal-scoring streak to 10 games and now has 15 on the season.
Taylor Roumy gives CB East a 1-0 lead. She’s now scored in 10 straight. https://t.co/b5nKYcno9V
— Backyard Pitches (@BackyardPitches) October 15, 2026
Pennridge responded after the goal by surging toward the other end, and in the 30th minute Jaylin Matusek had a great look from close range, but Thompson made a tremendous sprawling save to keep her shot out. In the final minutes of the half, Pennridge started to put East under more pressure and were able to hold the ball in East’s end and create multiple chances. Howley had two shots off extended possessions. The first shot missed wide, and the second took a deflection on its way into goal, but the surge from the hosts showed a clear change in momentum that they carried into the second half.
Much like in the first meeting between the two teams, when Pennridge scored twice minutes into the second half to tie the game at 3-3, the Rams came out with more intensity and challenged every fifty-fifty ball if it were their last. Though East continued to build from the back and create, their chances came from deep long balls that floated enough for Buckman to come out and control. Meanwhile, at the other end, Pennridge edged closer to an equalizer.
In the 53rd minute, Loux finally broke through for Pennridge. She took a giveaway straight down the center of the East defense and beat Thompson low to the far corner, tying the game at one-goal apiece. Loux has now scored in four-straight games.
After the goal, Pennridge continued to battle for possession in the attacking end, but East didn’t go down quietly. Roumy had several slicing runs through the Pennridge defense, drawing multiple free kicks in dangerous positions, but East couldn’t convert. In the 65th minute, she beat a double team on the wing and drove a ball in front of goal that just missed Riley Leedy. A minute later, Addie Langlois made a great run from her defensive position deep into the Pennridge penalty area, but Buckman stopped her shot with a kick save. Two minutes after that, Williams turned a defender and took a shot from the top of the box, but Buckman held on to make the save.
The defining moment came with nine minutes remaining in the game. Manville fed Loux inside the box on the right, and Loux used her body well to hold off Hayes going away to goal. Then she made a quick turn and fired with her left, beating Thompson to the far post to give Pennridge the lead.
Mikayla Loux scores a second for Pennridge. 2-1 Rams late. https://t.co/V2nmX46Y8i
— Backyard Pitches (@BackyardPitches) October 16, 2026
For the rest of the game, every ball was contested with a high level of intensity at both ends. East tried their best to find a second, but Pennridge held on with a tremendous amount of grit. One final free kick from Ava Mignon in the final seconds wasn’t enough as Buckman pushed it aside to seal the win.
“Pennridge was excellent,” CB East coach Jake Nesteruk said after the game. “I just thought a really well-coached team, a team that showed that they really wanted it, both in the effort they put forth and their decision making.”
East started the game without senior captain Mia Forney, who’s been fighting a muscle injury for several weeks, but they also lost Sleicher late in the first half due to injury, so Nesteruk had to go deeper into his bench from the start and for most of the game. East’s squad players have had plenty of quality minutes already, but this may have been a rare moment where they were also thrown into the fire of a close, intense game, which is something East will need as they prepare for another playoff run where every opponent plays them as tough as Pennridge did.
“As a program, we do believe we can have kids step in and fill the role and give us key moments and minutes when we need them. And you saw that tonight. I mean, the kids that came into this game, whether it’s Delaney Ralph, whether it’s Kailyn [Adenaike] in the back, whether it’s Liz Mooney coming in for Mia to start, they gave us some good minutes tonight, and I think they were more of a spark plug than anything else.”
First-year head coach Lucas Kriner said his team wanted to turn a corner after their early season losses and called the win special. “Glad we could do it at home. Credit to the fans. Credit to the kids. Just a really high energy game that had all the entertainment value we were hoping this fixture would have.”
Kriner called Loux’s game a massive performance. “She’s been working really hard. Super focused in training. Locked in on everything we’ve asked her to do, and to see her double up tonight was really neat.” Loux’s two goals gave her eight on the season, and depending on Howley’s status for the remainder of the season, she’ll likely become the focal point of Pennridge’s attack heading into the playoffs. “Super quality. Great kid. Glad that she could be on the score sheet and do that for us.”
Kriner added that the playoff environment created in the game can be attributed to the competitiveness of the league. East clinched the Colonial division title on Tuesday, but now four of the six teams are in the top-13 of District 1, with North Penn just inside the playoff line and CB West just outside. Pennridge has two games remaining in the season. They’ll play CB South and Springfield (DELCO) on the road.
East will conclude their season at CB West.
