(CONTINUED)

      “We had Shannon Doyle and a few others marking their best players,” Tajirian said. “We were focused on getting the draws and marking tight all the way up the field. I think we played great defense.”
    “In the beginning we had a couple lulls and the defense wasn’t ready,” said Kearney. “But we got into it. And anytime they scored and tried to get back in, we’d get it back.”
    Kearney said the Cougar players feed off the school’s winning tradition.
    “Everyone knows what they have to do to get here,” she said. “Being here three times, we knew all the work

during the season pays off.”
    Tajirian agreed: “I know we lost a lot of great players, but we knew we had great players again this year and we worked so hard in practice. We knew we could get here if we worked hard.”
    Great Valley coach Joe Tornetta blamed himself for not having his team as prepared as he wanted.
    “It falls on me,” he said. “I’m the one who is paid to get them ready to play, and unfortunately they weren’t ready to play tonight, and that’s my fault. I feel bad for the kids that I let them down”
    Tornetta also credited Springfield-Delco for its speed and ball control skills.
    “They’ve got speed – a lot of speed,” he said. “We needed to be smarter with the ball when we did gain possession. We needed to turn up our intensity on the draw controls; we were flat on the draw controls.:”