South Jersey Sports Weekly is a publication that launched in April. It’s produced by Sun Newspapers and appears in the physical copy within the Suns throughout South Jersey (in Moorestown, Medford, Cherry Hill, Washington Township, Deptford, etc). each Wednesday. Most of the content also appears online. The weekly, online notebook will provide you with even more of the content within SJSW’s physical pages.
***
In the coming week, teams from all across South Jersey will be raising trophies.
The celebrating actually began this week, as four area teams (Cherry Hill East, Moorestown, Haddonfield and Moorestown Friends) won South Jersey sectional championships in girls tennis. There will be field hockey titles decided on Halloween and South Jersey’s prestigious in-season tournament, the Coaches Tournament, has began in earnest this week.
And with the weather beginning to cool down, football season is becoming more interesting with each passing week, as teams like Lenape and Highland have emerged as serious contenders while Williamstown appears just as strong as they were when they where champions in 2018.
It’s also the time of the season when senior leaders are showing that experience matters, including Lenape’s Megan McKenna.
SJSW Player of the Week
Megan McKenna
Lenape High School
Senior
Field Hockey
Lenape field hockey has emerged as one of the hottest teams in South Jersey entering the final stretch of the regular season. A 1-0 victory over Cherokee last Thursday was Lenape’s sixth win in their previous seven games, with the only loss in that span being a 4-1 defeat against national powerhouse Eastern. Midfielder Megan McKenna has been a big reason for the team’s success. She scored two goals in Lenape’s 3-1 win over Moorestown on Oct. 5 and was the lone goalscorer in the Cherokee win. McKenna has scored a career-high 10 goals so far in 2019.
“We’ve had a lot of focus practices to focus on the little things because we were trying to get back to the basics to improve our overall game,” McKenna said. “The Eastern game, even though we lost, was only 4-1 and even scoring on them really boosted our confidence for the rest of the season. Hopefully we’ll keep the streak going.”
Quotable: “She’s kind of a momentum builder and then she becomes the foundation of that momentum throughout the rest of the game,” Lenape head coach Sarah Moretti said. “She has improved impressively on being a leader and leading girls around her to step up and rise up.”
“Her on the ground stick skills, her 3D stick skills, her weak-side stick skills, her strong-side stick skills, they’re unstoppable. “And her ability to create deception.” Moretti later added about McKenna’s ability to possess the ball. “She baits (opponents), she pulls like it’s nothing.”
***
Scenes from Last Week
Field Hockey: Lenape vs. Cherokee
All photos: MIKE MONOSTRA/South Jersey Sports Weekly
Girls Soccer: Paul VI at Timber Creek
All photos: RYAN LAWRENCE/South Jersey Sports Weekly
***
ICYMI: Stories from Last Week
- Highland junior running back Johnny Martin talks about the Tartans season, goals for his future, who’d he handpick from any other team to put on his team’s roster, and more.
- Williamstown’s volleyball team is continuing to roll toward the playoffs: the Braves are unbeaten against South Jersey foes and hungry to bring hardware to the school’s trophy case in the coming weeks.
- Gloucester Catholic’s Ryan DiGiacomo is following the family tradition contributing to the Rams athletic program. Gloucester Catholic’s top male cross country runner, DiGiacomo has his sights set on a top-20 finish at this year’s Non-Public Group Championship.
- The Coaches Tournament is underway and No.2 seed Clearview is hoping to continue it’s strong start to the soccer season by adding a trophy or two in the next few weeks.
***
Have a story idea for South Jersey Sports Weekly? Email us: news@southjerseysportsweekly.com
