Monday, September 24  

On a sunny and hot Sunday afternoon, the Blue Storm field hockey team hosted The Hun School of Princeton, New Jersey.  Coming off a buzzer-beating win against Maryland’s St. James, the Storm now looked to avenge last year’s 2-1 loss at Hun.  On Saturday night, Storm coaches and players traveled to College Park, Maryland to watch an ACC field hockey showdown between Maryland and Wake Forest.  Now it was time for the Storm’s own showdown.

Two minutes into the opening half, midfielder and co-captain Gussie Reilly ‘08 received a nice drop pass from fellow co-captain Mary Lancaster ‘08.  Reilly sent the ball to Coralie Thomas ’09 who notched the Storm’s first shot on net.  Reilly did a great job patrolling and controlling the middle of the field throughout the contest while Lancaster proved yet again to be an unceasing offensive threat.  But in the seventh minute of play, after two consecutive corner shots, the third corner proved to be the charm for Hun as they scored off a nice pass to take a 1-0 lead.  That prompted head coach Gretchan Frederick to shout to her team, “Which team are you?  Which team do you want to be?”  And the team was obviously listening, as they began to pick up the pace of play.

Reilly stole the ball from a charging Hun midfielder and returned it to Hun’s defensive end.  That led to an offensive corner for the Storm in which Reilly sent the ball to Lancaster, whose shot was blocked.  Upper-middler Annie Birney then sent a scorching long cross from the sideline that shot across the front of Hun’s goal.  But Hun then went on the offensive, first with a free hit from forty feet outside the Storm goal that angled wide right, then with another offensive threat that was nicely stopped by upper-middler Allison Rost.

Then it was the Storm’s turn, as Reilly cleared to right-winger Amelia Goebel ’09, who spent much of the game flying up and down the right sideline deftly dribbling the ball and hastening the Blue Storm’s transition from defense to offense.  Sprinting down the right side, Goebel sent the ball across the Hun goal to Laura Graham ’09, who passed it off to forward Arcadia Hartung ’09.  Hun was called for obstruction, and the Storm took a corner.  That began a string of real offensive opportunities.  Defensive captain Laura Diller ’08 took the ball and charged towards the goal.  Then Thomas did the same.  Diller next sent a rocket up the middle of the field.  At the sixteen-minute mark, Goebel executed a beautiful give-and-go to Reilly that resulted in another shot on the Hun goal.  The Storm really threatened with two more quick shots on goal, but the one that went in came from Lancaster’s stick off a good pass from Hartung.

With the game knotted at 1-1, the Storm continued to press.  Diller robbed the ball from a Hun forward, which led to another offensive drive and another offensive corner and another Lancaster scoring opportunity.  Goebel then shot down the right side and crossed to Lancaster, who showcased her “killer stick skills” (as noted by Liza Rizzo ’11) as she maneuvered a 360-degree turn in front of the goal to try to get past two Hun defenders. 

The Storm clearly had the upper hand in the first half, but it was a half of play that witnessed several moments of real strength cluttered by sporadic lapses in concentration.  The coaches obviously helped the team refocus because the Storm came back in the second half and racked up four unanswered goals.

Just three minutes into the second half, Diller sent a very strong ball past several Hun players.  Lancaster picked it up, dribbled past two defenders, and netted the ball with a reverse stick shot to give the Storm a 2-1 lead.  Then Goebel did her thing, speeding down the right side, and passing to Lancaster, who took the pass and scored again to put the Storm up by two goals.  Jane Eder ’10 followed with a shot on goal, and when Hun tried to go back on offense, Rost swiped the ball and sent it back to their end.  At the twenty-minute mark, it went something like this:  Birney to Goebel to Lancaster to Goebel to Lancaster to the back of the goal for the Storm’s fourth goal. 

The Storm kept coming.  A Hun penalty led to a Storm ‘stroke,’ which is basically the equivalent of a soccer penalty kick.  Lancaster took the stroke but the ball went wide left.  Storm goalie Jane Banta ‘11 made two good saves with eighteen minutes to play and a third with 16:40 to go.  Despite a handful of corners and some good passes midway through the second half, Hun was not able to get the ball past Banta.

Cammie Reilly ’10, Gussie’s sister and teammate, headed into the game at center back.  With less than ten minutes to play, Hartung stopped a bouncing cross, settled it and quickly launched a shot that went just wide of the goal.  Fifteen seconds later, she stopped a Hun advance at midfield and turned the ball around.  Lancaster took a blistering shot wide left with 5:00 on the clock and two minutes later, Goebel again sped down the right wing and sent the ball to Eder, who stuffed it into the left side of the goal to give the Storm a 5-1 lead.  When the final whistle blew, the Storm had racked up twenty shots on goal, had given up only one goal, and had tucked away their first MAPL (Mid-Atlantic Prep League) win of the season.  Several players, including Clare Shearer ’09, really stepped up and played their best game of the season, and that bodes well for this team’s future.

--by Phil Kantaros with superb assistance from Liza Rizzo ‘11