The Salisbury field hockey team made history this season when it won the first District 11 title in program history.

The Falcons added another accomplishment to their historic season last Tuesday when they won their first state playoff game, beating Harriton 2-0 to advance to the quarterfinals.

“We came into this season on this theme of ‘not done,’” said Salisbury head coach Jane Brennan. “It’s on their warm up T-shirts. This group has been together for a really long time and they don’t want to be done.”

Salisbury outshot Harriton 6-1 in the first half and had four corners to the Rams’ one, but the contest remained scoreless at halftime.

Two more Salisbury corners in the third quarter still didn’t produce a goal.

Finally with just over seven minutes left in the game, Kendra Morgan drew Salisbury’s ninth corner of the game.

Gwynn DeFazio inserted the ball to Ellie Schneider, who passed into the goal crease. The pass went by its intended recipient and right to senior Sarah Beckage, who slammed it into the back of the cage for a 1-0 lead with 6:24 left in the game.

“I think she was trying to pass to our stroker,” said Beckage. “It popped off her stick and it went on my stick. I brought it back in and it went in.”

Less than two minutes later the Falcons doubled their lead when Morgan drew a foul in the circle to earn a penalty stroke for her team.

Schneider took the stroke, blasting a shot into the upper right corner of the cage for a 2-0 lead with 4:42 left in the game.

“Luckily Kendra Morgan got us that stroke and we trust Ellie with all our heart on those strokes,” said Beckage.

The Falcons outshot Harriton 11-1 in the game and held a 9-2 advantage in corners against the third-place team out of District 1.

“They put the work in all season,” Brennan said of her team. “Tonight we felt coming into this one that we did our homework on them. We were composed. We played a classy game. They worked together and that’s the key.”

Brennan and her staff were able to get three of the Rams’ games on video and scouted their strengths and weaknesses.

After two quarters without a goal, some halftime adjustments paid off.

“We made a little switch up front,” Brennan said. “That allowed us to become more offensive. We had a good talk at halftime. We knew it was going to go, it was just a matter of when.

“They kept banging on the door. We always tell them the more you bang on the door, its going to open eventually and it did.”

The shutout was the third straight for Salisbury goalie Caroline Gedney, with all coming in postseason games in which a loss would have ended the team’s season. Gedney and center back Meredith Kelley anchor the Falcon defense.

“Our defensive players mesh really well,” said Brennan. “Their communication in the backfield is nothing I have ever had before. The fact that they know where everyone is and how to man mark and how to mark tightly has made the difference. They also know how to recover for each other. It’s a massive trust factor.”

Last Tuesday’s win put Salisbury in Saturday’s PIAA Class 2A quarterfinal round, where they fell to District 3 runner up Warwick, 9-4, bringing an end to the Falcons’ historic season. They went 20-3 in 2025.