Scholastic Notes

New York

WINDS OF CHANGE ON LONG ISLAND

The Long Island field hockey community has had a pecking order for many decades when it comes to who beats whom, which teams get the respect, and who wins state championships.

But there are several changes on Long Island this year.

Field hockey coaches at Nassau County's large schools are rubbing their temples and furrowing their brows like never before now that Garden City (N.Y.) has moved from Class B to Class A.

"It will be much tougher to get a crown," Port Washington (N.Y.) coach Joe Lederer told Newsday. "They will be one of our many competitors."

Of course, the big coaching change will be at Centereach (N.Y.), where Carla Melfi takes over for the legendary Nancy Cole.

"I won't change what she did because it worked for so long," Melfi tells Newsday. "I am going to put my own spin on things."

There are a number of new Long Island contenders in 2002. One of the early surprises has been Greenway Harborfields (N.Y.), which started the season 5-0, including a 3-0 shutout of East Setauket Ward Melville (N.Y.).

New Jersey

NJSIAA FINALS ARE ALL ABOUT PLAYING THE FAVORITE

The New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association championship finals featured four favored teams and four distinct underdogs. Each had to find their own ways to handle their situations under the most intense pressure on the Lions Stadium turf at The College of New Jersey.

Voorhees Eastern (N.J.) took a 3-0 lead into the second half of the Group IV championship game against Flemington Hunterdon Central, and Danyle Heilig could have chosen any essay from The Great Book of Motivational Speeches.

But she chose just two words: "Emmaus lost."

Heilig wanted her team to close out an undefeated, untied season at the top slot of the TopOfTheCircle.com national rankings, and the Vikings did, holding Hunterdon Central without a shot on goal in a 5-0 win.

Eastern finished No. 1 in regional rankings in 2001, but the 2002 top ranking was the first ever on a coast-to-coast basis. The Vikings were put in the top slot one week after Emmaus (Pa.) dropped a 1-0 decision in the PIAA Class AAA final.

The game being decided pretty much in the first half, it might have been tempting for the Vikings to pursue individual goals. Top attacker Shaun Banta, who had already converted a penalty stroke, could have gotten greedy late in the game to go for her 50th goal of the season, tying her for 11th on the national all-time single-season scoring list.

But, on a left-elbow corner in the last quarter-hour, Banta allowed Ashley Walls' slapshot enter the goal cage untouched, distracting the goalie just by her presence.

"It's all right; I wanted 49 (the South Jersey record)," Walls said.

And there were also the team goals. Eastern scored 146 goals in 2002, more than any other team in the country except Emmaus (188). The Eastern total is good for fourth in the single-season annals. And all this without standout Lori Hillman, who finished off a stellar scholastic career the previous autumn.

"I think she taught us a lot last year, and especially me, since I've been playing with her since fifth grade," Banta said of her former teammate. "Me and Rachel (Dawson) have been trying to carry the leadership forward to these young kids."

And there are a number of young kids ready to extend the team's current winning streak (now standing at 84 games) and unbeaten streak (now at 90). The national record of 106 games by Casady (Okla.) is less than a full season away.

"They took (this season) one game at a time, and they handled it very maturely," Heilig said. "We didn't talk about it, and that helped tremendously. If the streaks happen, great. If not, that wasn't our intent."

Ocean City (N.J.) had as easy a time against a plucky Sussex High Point (N.J.) team, winning 3-0 in a game which was as much about respect as anything else. The Red Raiders cannot help but to feel under-ranked in regional, state, and national rankings in 2002, despite a stellar 23-0-1 record.

"We feel as though we deserve as much respect as anyone else," said OC head coach Trish LeFever. "All we can do is do it on the field."

The same can be said for the team's senior class, including forward Jen Cruz, the 4-foot-11 firebrand. She was unafraid in the circle all day long, scoring a goal and creating chances.

"Our only regret is our one tie, otherwise we'd have a perfect record," Cruz said. "But then again, there's no such thing as perfection. We're just happy to be here."

The Red Raiders could have been excused if they were a little down in energy after a penalty stroke shootout against Moorestown (N.J.) in the state semifinals. But Ocean City has never lost a state final; LeFever's crew has won all five finals on the Lions' Stadium turf.

The Group I title game was about redemption for West Long Branch Shore Regional (N.J.), which lost only its second game in nine tries at Lions' Stadium in 2001.

However, the Blue Devils left little chance for West Amwell South Hunterdon (N.J.), outshooting the Eagles by a wide margin on the way to a 2-0 win.

Nancy Williams, the nation's winningest coach with 591, had challenged her team after the 2001 defeat at the hands of Madison (N.J.) to make the necessary improvements.

"They vowed they would get back here, and they worked really, really hard," she said. "They played indoor, they played outdoor during the summer, and they started running July 1. They did all of the things they needed to do."

Chief amongst those who improved is senior midfielder Amanda Arnold, who has, according to Williams, the fastest hands in her 34 years as coach. Her international-caliber ball-striking got her 49 goals in her senior year.

And the thing is, Arnold said she didn't work with any one person on her technique over the past year; her silky shot was self-taught.

"We all just had so much confidence," Arnold said. "We knew we were ready for this game after the team dinner last night, and we were all so close."

And Lauren Hennessey has set up Arnold for most of those goals. She had 48 assists in 2002, which far exceeds the existing state and National Federation record of 39 by former North Caldwell West Essex (N.J.) standout Diane DeMiro.

Hennessey is not only a great passer, but one of the most talented open-field players in the 2003 recruiting class. She had an excellent breakaway goal in the Group I final game.

"Lauren and Amanda are among the best midfielders I have ever had here, and that includes Jessie Coleman, Kathleen Kelly, Andy Begel, and Meredith Pizzulli," Williams said. "They just had confidence and maturity."

In the Group II title game, North Caldwell West Essex (N.J.) had the role of favorite, though it had not won a state title in five years. The Knights, ever since a memorable 1-1 draw in the 1997, championship had fallen short of state title glory since.

On the other hand, Cherry Hill Camden Catholic (N.J.) was looking for its first state title in 17 years. And in perhaps the wildest twist to the wildest Group II tournament ever, an incident in the opening two minutes of overtime will be talked about for years to come.

At the onset of extra time, a Camden Catholic parent noticed something wrong and relayed it to the Irish bench. Moments later, the table official walked out to the near-side umpire and asked for the clock to be stopped.

Turns out that West Essex started overtime with seven field players instead of six. However, the extra player was removed before an official player count was made by the umpiring crew, and the overtime was allowed to continue.

That led to Liz Edwards' gorgeous conversion of a Katelin De Troia diagonal pass off a 3-on-2 break to give the Knights the win.

Also making the game memorable was the fact that the head coaches -- Monica DeBease of Camden Catholic and Jill Cosse of West Essex -- attended The Institution Formerly Known As Trenton State, making the game a homecoming for both coaches.

"It's really neat; Jill called me to say that she had won in overtime (over Glen Gardner Voorhees), so it was really special that we got to play each other," DeBease said.

"It's great to be back here on this field, and great to be back here with this group of kids who, for four years, put in the time and got back their rewards," Cosse said. "This is where they wanted to end their season."

Another interesting sideline to this game -- as well as to the Group II tournament -- was that DeBease wasn't available to coach for a two-week period at the start of November. She had given birth to her daughter, Madigan, who was being doted on by the TSC/TCNJ alumnae in attendance at the game.

And there was somewhat of a mutual appreciation of each other's talents. When Camden Catholic, after withstanding tremendous West Essex pressure for the first 48 minutes, earned its first corner of the afternoon, the Irish almost scored, using patience and poise not often seen under such circumstances.

"Weren't they great?" Cosse said of her fellow alumna's attack plans. "She really got her team ready to play. It was really great that we got to play each other."

GROUP II HISTORY TAKES A STRANGE TWIST

The history of the NJSIAA Group II field hockey tournament has created its own legends, its own stories.

There have been crazy games, overtimes, shootouts, last-second heroics, class players, and thoughtful coaching.

But the events of the fourth week of November 2002 were unique to not only the Group II Tournament, but perhaps all of hockey in the United States.

One day before Glen Gardner Voorhees (N.J.) was scheduled to play North Caldwell West Essex (N.J.), one of the team's captains was arrested, along with some 30 other individuals, in a major narcotics bust that allegedly sold marijuana, the party drug Ecstasy, cocaine, and heroin. The latter is blamed for the deaths of two area students in the month of November.

Rumors flew around the school and within the team that up to two more team members had warrants out for their arrest.

This could have absolutely devastated the psyche of the No. 2 team in the nation in the TopOfTheCircle.com Top 10 for the week ending Nov. 18. But the Vikings, to their credit, unified.

Ann Bonavita's crew united around leading scorer Taylor Webb and fellow midfielders Brittany Russo and Emily Shumski, the latter of whom gave the Vikings the lead in just the fourth minute of the game.

However, West Essex would tie the game 18 minutes later, then would apply outstanding defensive pressure, holding Voorhees shotless in the second half.

"I think we started thinking too much defensively," said Vikings' head coach Ann Bonavita. "In the second half, they were stopping most of our drives and keeping the ball inbounds."

In the 7-on-7s, it would be Lindsay Finocchiaro who would end the game for West Essex, sending the Knights to the Group II finals.

But in a bizarre twist, she would send the ball into the cage off Webb into the goal cage. Two seasons previously, Webb was struck in the leg on a Collingswood shot, which led to an overtime penalty stroke to give Collingswood the win in the state finals.

It was an almost unfair way that the season ended for Glen Gardner Voorhees. However, it will be a day which will be talked about for a long time.

STUART FINDS PITONYAK CENTER A SLICE OF HOME

The most intimate field hockey venue in the United States is no more.

Magnetti Field, located on the campus of Princeton Stuart Country Day School (N.J.) is located in a thicket right next to the campus gym. The sounds of mulberry wood, hard plastic, and conversation readily reflect off the old-growth trees.

Generations of Stuart players have honed their skills on this pitch, and it is no wonder that Tartan teams have had good home records in the late 1980s and early 1990s: Magnetti is shorter and narrower than the regulation hockey field.

The athletic brass at the school went through several years of planning before coming up with a design concept that came to fruition in 2002: the Pitonyak Center.

The dual-field complex, carved out of a glen abutting Great Road, was christened in October for the opening round of the New Jersey Independent School Athletic Association (NJISAA) championship.

So, you might say that the new field came of age in early November, when Stuart got a 66th minute golden goal from Siobhan McCarty in a 2-1 win over Hightstown Peddie School (N.J.) in the tournament final.

It was the second time Stuart has won the combined state prep-school championship after winning five straight Prep "B" titles between 1991 and 1995.

On the winning play, a Tartan corner shot was defensed on the part of Peddie back Molly Palionlanis. The ball, however, trickled to McCarty, who shepherded it in.

"I don't remember much; it's all a blur," McCarthy said. "I dove for the ball, and I went into the goal, and the ball came with me. We've waited two years for this field, and we got to win it in front of our fans."

Carly Williams, who had Stuart's first goal at the Pitonyak Center, had the opening goal in the 2002 final, only to see Peddie connect minutes later, leading to the overtime heroics.

"This team, the last couple of years, has been asked to do things no other team we've had here has had to do, as far as the practice schedule, and 30-some games on the road. And all they want to do is play hockey and be together; it wasn't even an issue for them," said Stuart head coach Missy Bruvik, who annually gets more out of less than any field hockey coach in America. "The chemistry, and the way they treat each others as friends, is remarkable. To be able to be here today, on this field, is like a weight off your back. They've done so well; it's almost like giving back and saying, 'Hey, we got you the No. 1 seed.' and the school said, 'Look, here's what we're going to do. Let's get you on that field and open it.' "

The Tartans are 3-0 at Pitonyak Center. Looks like a good start.

CONGDON TAKES THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED

Christina Congdon and the rest of the Glen Gardner Voorhees (N.J.) defense could have sealed their head coach's 200th win the easy way.

Up 2-0 over Washington Warren Hills (N.J.) in the final of the Hunterdon-Warren County Tournament, the top-seeded Vikings observed the third official counting off the final minute of play while their opponents were setting up a late corner.

The easy way would have been to let in a goal, trot slowly to the center circle, take the next hitback, and run out the clock.

But Voorhees, ranked No. 3 in the nation by TopOfTheCircle.com for the week ending Oct. 28, is made of sterner stuff.

The Vikings repelled one corner, and when Warren Hills was awarded a second, Congdon ended the game with a spectacular lunging stick save.

"How awesome was that?" said teammate and captain Taylor Webb. "That was just a phenomenal save, and back there, you have so much confidence in the people behind you, and that's what you have to have, otherwise you're running around there on your own."

"My defense is really solid, and we look forward to the opportunity to challenge ourselves, and Warren Hills really did, and I think we stepped up," Congdon said.

Webb, on the way to winning the Outstanding Player honor for the 2002 tournament, had a long blast in the early going, and a second-half penalty stroke. But she couldn't stop raving about the Voorhees defense.

"We made it harder on ourselves, but we said, 'Nothing.' Bottom line, we aren't going to give up anything," she said.

The team knows that, as part of the North 2 Group II tournament, it probably has the toughest road to a state championship in the country. And defense, the old maxim goes, wins championships.

"We'll have to go through Madison, and through (North Caldwell) West Essex," said Voorhees head coach Ann Bonavita, who got her 200th win with the Hunterdon-Warren championship. "Now, I don't know what we'll have in South Jersey, but I know that Red Bank Catholic is having a great year, and Cinnaminson and Collingswood are having good years. And you know what? The kids would like to see that rematch (of an overtime loss in the Group II final in 2000)."

"Looking at what we have to face, we have to see what we have to do to overcome this obstacle," Congdon said. "We looked at this as a test, and showed we could pull through this."

WALLS, DAWSON BEST WEST ESSEX

In field hockey, emotions and outlooks can change in as little as 19 seconds. Just ask Lauren Walls and Rachel Dawson of Voorhees Eastern (N.J.).

In the 57th minute of the Vikings' early October match with North Caldwell West Essex (N.J.), Rachel Dawson, the third of the hockey-playing Dawson sisters, was designated to take a penalty stroke with the score tied 1-1. Her flick, however, went eye-high on West Essex keeper Alex Ruggieri for an easy save.

However, Dawson won a free hit seconds later and delivered a textbook laser to Walls, who tipped it into the cage just 19 seconds after the missed stroke, giving Eastern the win in one of the most highly anticipated interconference matches of the season.

"It was teamwork; everyone put in the teamwork the last two minutes," said Walls, the youngest of a set of field-hockey playing triplets at the school.

Oddly enough, about 19 seconds after the game-winning goal, Walls attempted a tackle on the strong side of an opposing West Essex midfielder, and got struck with the tip of the stick in the hollow just above her knee, opening a three-inch gash, forcing her to the sidelines for the final two minutes of regulation.

"Look, can we just get stitches so that I can get back in there?" she calmly asked as concerned teammates, coaches, and administrators circled her as the clock ticked down.

In the words of ESPN's John Anderson, "She's tough; she's a hockey player."

Tough also was the resolve of West Essex. This proud program has not made a state championship game since 1997, but the Knights showed that it was able to play evenly with the country's No. 1 team in the TopOfTheCircle.com Top 10 for the week ending Sept. 30, 2001

Part of the Knights' resurgence is coaching, as Jill Cosse is one of the game's great thinkers. During the week she gave goalkeeper Ruggieri a 15-minute lesson in practice on the finer points of logging, or laying down across the face of goal on penalty corners. And on a couple of Eastern's first-half corners, the technique worked, as the sophomore batted away a Dawson laser with her foam blocker.

"That was neat, wasn't it?" Cosse said. "She's going to have to learn that in college, anyway."

Over the course of the game, West Essex matched Eastern in intensity and jump, and could very well have come away with the win with a couple of breaks.

"If we had done in the second half what we did in the first, them maybe the outcome would have been different," Cosse said. "But you can never say that, because Danyle might have changed things, too, because she's a phenomenal coach."

"It was a great opportunity to see two of the best teams in New Jersey, and it was a fun game; very relieved," Heilig said. "As intense as some of our games was, this was at another level. I tried to motivate the team as a North vs. South, for bragging rights. I didn't bring up the streak."

That streak is a 69-game winning streak. West Essex held the state record for the longest winning streak until Eastern broke it 2002. For this contest, in a move reminiscent of Cosse's alma mater (Trenton State College), she invited a number of prominent figures, including record scorer Diane DeMiro and legendary Knights head coach Linda Alimi to the game.

"We had about eight girls on our sideline who have played Division I and have been part of our tradition," Cosse said. "They knew that there was a lot more on the line for them, representing a tradition."

GROSSMAN AIDS MOORESTOWN'S CAUSE

How sophisticated has field hockey intelligence become in southern New Jersey? It has gotten to the point where high-school players gauge the tendencies of umpires from the positions they filled as players.

"We knew," said senior Aurora Grossman, "that the ref on my side the second half was a forward, and that she would be more likely to hold the whistle. She would have appreciated it if she was playing."

Grossman was referring to a second-half goal she scored in a 2-0 win over Flemington Hunterdon Central (N.J.) in an intersectional match. She took a pass a little higher than the stroke mark, and fired a shot that was partially blocked. The ball went high into the cage, a ball which might have been blown dead for a corner by a less sophisticated umpiring crew.

The game was actually about eight years in the making; the teams had agreed to play twice at Princeton University's turf facility in the mid-1990s, but both games were rained out.

The contest was used to help gauge where these teams are relative to their playoff rivals; Moorestown, the defending state Group II champions, moved to Group III in 2002. Hunterdon Central finished second in the Group IV tournament and is looking to improve that one rung.

"This was good for us, win or lose," said Central coach Jennifer Sponzo. "We had to get that tournament experience. And Moorestown is ranked No. 2 in the state (according to the Newark Star-Ledger), so if we were to get to the (Group IV) final, (No. 1 Voorhees) Eastern is the team we'd have to play."

This was the Red Devils' inaugural trip to South Jersey, and as such, adjustments had to be made. In the second half, for example, the Quakers' forward line put extreme pressure on the Hunterdon Central goal cage. In the course of a 15-second scrum in front, there was the kind of jostling that is usually whistled down everywhere else except for southern New Jersey.

"We were hoping that it would be a wide-open game, and they were a very skilled team," said Moorestown head coach Joan Lewis. "But we were able to play two good halves today."

As strong as Grossman and midfielder Casey Cech were for Moorestown, the veteran senior Blair Alber was equally strong for Central.

"Oh, thank God we had Blair today," Sponzo said. "She's really done a great job tracking down the ball this year."

SOUTH JERSEY REALIGNMENT IS GETTING TURBULENT

In the field hockey culture, the term "South Jersey" used to mean a lot. It was a distinct hockey society: every team south of Trenton, the state's capital, was in the same New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association section, every team belonged to the South Jersey Field Hockey Coaches' Association, and most postgraduate women would participate in either the South Jersey Field Hockey League or the West Jersey Women's Field Hockey League.

Change was in the air in the late 1990s, however, as the long-standing Burlington County Scholastic League lost a number of its teams to the Olympic Conference. In 2000, the NJSIAA moved several South Jersey teams into the Central Jersey section for playoff purposes. It was a field hockey-only change that will reportedly become a statewide procedure if a Dec. 3 meeting approves the change for all sports.

Now, there are major rumblings about the future of the Burlington County Scholastic League (BCSL) and its relationship with the Olympic Conference to the south, and the Colonial Valley Conference (CVC) to the north.

In 2000, the Allentown district split in two, with Allentown (N.J.) moving to the CVC and Plumsted New Egypt (N.J.) going to the BCSL. In 2001, a CVC school, Hamilton McCorristin Catholic (N.J.), announced that it would transfer its affiliation to the BCSL for football initially.

Other football schools in the BCSL, such as Delran Holy Cross (N.J.), were reportedly ready to jump ship to the Olympic.

Confused?

For the purposes of field hockey, the only change in 2002 is that the Olympic Conference is playing two games a season within the seven-team league rather than once. The effect takes away six non-conference games that could be used to maintain old rivalries and to challenge players with high-caliber opponents.

"I don't like it," Marlton Cherokee (N.J.) coach Sharon Tinucci tells The Burlington County Times. "I think our conference is one of the top conferences in the state. I'm afraid that our top teams are going to knock each other out of the playoffs too early. We should be represented at the end of the year and I hate to see a very good team get knocked out earlier than they should be. We're all going to see each other again in the playoffs anyway.''

More changes could be forthcoming. Some smaller BCSL schools, notably Columbus Northern Burlington (N.J.), are rumored to have applied for CVC membership, further diluting what "South Jersey field hockey" means.

ULTIMATE GROUP IV SUPREMACY MAY COME DOWN TO GOALKEEPING

In late September, Voorhees Eastern (N.J.) played Medford Lakes Shawnee (N.J.) in the first of two regular-season games within the Olympic Conference.

Eastern, having won the last three state Group IV titles using a winning streak of some 65 games, had all of the attacking firepower and talent necessary to win, but Shawnee, in a 2-1 loss on Eastern's home field, may have sent the first serious shot across the Vikings' bow in a long time.

Jessica Malone, the Shawnee goalkeeper, provided the ammunition. She stopped a Rachel Dawson penalty stroke in the first half, though she could not stopped a screened bullet off Dawson's corner shot with less than 10 minutes remaining in regulation.

"Jessica was amazing, just amazing," Shawnee coach Heather Xenakis told The Burlington County Times. "Stopping the penalty stroke helped a lot but she had the momentum today. She was mentally prepared and that's what we ask of her."

"Jessica was terrific today," said Dawson, who has played club and Futures hockey with Malone. "She played her heart out. I usually try to get as wide as possible when I take penalty strokes and she just beat me to the corner. She played great the whole game."

The win was record-breaking for Eastern; it was the team's 66th win in a row, a state record. It was also the 72nd game without a loss for the program. That is also the length of head coach Danyle Heilig's entire coaching career at Eastern.

"We didn't talk about the record with the girls that much, but of course they knew," Heilig told The Camden Courier-Post. "The most meaningful thing is that this represents three and a half seasons of excellence, and there are a lot of girls involved in that."

The second game, however, featured less of the goalkeepers; there were just five shots on goal the entire game. Gregory made one save on the Renegades' one shot on goal, and Malone made two stops before yielding a pair of goals in the final 10 minutes of play.

These two proud programs appear destined to meet in the state tournament. And oddly enough, it was in the 1998 state tournament when Eastern last lost a game, and it was to Medford Lakes Shawnee.

Pennsylvania

PIAA FINALS A STUDY IN RECOVERY

The 2002 Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association featured three teams which lost championship finals the last two years, as well as some interesting ways that coaches got their players back to win after previous heartbreak.

In the Class AAA final, Buckingham Central Bucks East (Pa.) made its third consecutive trip to the final, having dropped title games in 2000 and 2001.

And against an Emmaus (Pa.) team that set a National Federation record for the most goals ever scored by a field hockey team in a season, and held the top ranking in the TopOfTheCircle.com Top 10 since the preseason, the Patriots not only were able to thwart the Hornets, they beat Emmaus 1-0 on a corner goal in the 59th minute of play.

On the play, Heather Bloemeker sent a diagonal pass to an open Jen Long. The ball hopped off her stick momentarily, and she had to rescue it from going over the end line.

Long, a sophomore, calmly got the ball to the wide-open senior Ashley Kocis, who dribbled the ball over the goal line. Ominously, there were 111 seconds remaining on the clock.

"It all came together nicely today," said East head coach Jeff Harding. "We wanted to play high pressure, we wanted corners -- we didn't get as many as we'd like, but we got the one we needed."

Emmaus had a chance in the final minute of play to tie the game and send it into overtime, but a well-timed through pass was pushed just wide of the post.

"We had opportunities, they had opportunities, and it was a well-played game," said Emmaus head coach Susan Butz-Stavin. "There was one little component that we didn't have, and we didn't get to finish. And that's hockey."

Aside from that chance, C.B. East goalkeeper Sarah Abboud was magnificent. She made not only the necessary save, she directed rebounds to prevent the green waves of Emmaus forwards from latching onto a second chance.

"We've been wanting to be here for the last three years," Abboud said. "And this year, we came through; it's so awesome."

"There were no rebounds that landed in front," Harding said. "There was no junk left over for them to come into."

The Patriots' rearguard, anchored by center halfback Lauren Crandall, was extremely stout, having to face an senior-laden Emmaus team with amazing firepower.

"We wanted to shut down their passing game, and play our game," said the Wake Forest-bound Crandall. "They didn't have that quick pass."

Emmaus had uncharacteristic trouble on free hits inside the 25, taking extra seconds that it had not taken in its previous 55 matches.

"When a team like Emmaus wants to initiate a small passing game, you have to apply high pressure in all thirds of the field, and not give them any time," Harding said. "They play two-second hockey: when the whistle blows, boom, they come with a small pass. If you give them enough time, they will pick you apart. We brought players into positions where were only showing them the hit. By eliminating the small pass, we forced them to hit the ball. And they stuck to the game plan."

The road back for Central Bucks East started just after the 2001 championship game, a 2-1 loss to Emmaus.

"Right after that game, we got on the bus, and we were upset, but we said, 'We'll get them next time,' " Abboud said. "We still knew we had to work harder to accomplish our goal."

The Class AA final had the last two runners up, Lehman Lake-Lehman (Pa.) and Lancaster (Pa.) Mennonite. But Lake-Lehman, which lost to Wyoming (Pa.) Seminary in 2001, had the better day, scoring a pair of goals in the dying seconds of the first half to stop the Blazers 3-0.

Lehman got both its goals on well-designed penalty corners from roughly the same area: the arc of the circle from the left wing. Lisa Wasser scored in the 29th minute on a deflection, and Megan DeCesaris added to the onslaught with just 12 seconds remaining before the halftime whistle. Meredith Edwards' fine field goal in the 43rd was insurance.

"It certainly was opportune," said Lake-Lehman head coach Jean Lipski of the 1:02 outburst. "We talk about how mental sports are, and it's really tough to go into halftime being scored upon so quickly late in the half."

"We never recovered from that," said Mennonite head coach Lauri LeFever. "but the difference in the game was speed. I mean, their drives were faster than we were getting out, and we never got a stick on them."

PUBLIC LEAGUE FINAL COULD BE LAST OF AN ERA

For more than a quarter of a century, a dwindling pool of teams in the city of Philadelphia have competed amongst themselves for the Public League field hockey championship.

Philadelphia George Washington (Pa.) was able to win the game 1-0 on a fine goal from converted soccer player Melissa Gamble, who took a neat feed from winger Stephanie Luciany and sent it into the backboard.

However, the talk this offseason will be about how teams in the Public League will likely begin filing the necessary paperwork to join the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association.

It is a move which is seen as benefiting basketball, since two of the top programs in the entire state - the boys' team at Philadelphia Simon Gratz (Pa.) and the girls' team at Radnor Archbishop Carroll (Pa.) do not participate in the state playoffs.

The Philadelphia Public League will, if it joins the PIAA, add its seven current teams to a mix which will likely put the programs in the highly competitive District 1-Class AAA tournament, which could be overwhelming for these programs at first.

As for the 2002 title game, Gamble was a little surprised at how quickly she became the mainstay of head coach Carolyn Swanson's program.

"I've played soccer all my life," Gamble told The Northeast News Gleaner. "I came in not knowing anything about field hockey, and the coaches really helped me."

The game wasn't over but for a late Central thrust into an empty Washington defensive third. However, with the outcome in the balance, Jenn Welte perhaps executed the tackle of the year, catching up to the ball and taking it away.

"That surprised me, but I knew that I was going to be able to catch up," Welte deadpanned.

"You'll never get used to this - ever," said Swanson, successor to the legendary Dottie Walton as head coach at Washington. "There are tremendous teams in this league, it's just great to be here twice in a row. I didn't expect it."

LOWER DAUPHIN, TOURNAMENT TOUGH

If there was ever a team that could be ready to knock off the likes of Emmaus (Pa.), Buckingham Central Bucks East (Pa.), and Souderton (Pa.) in the state tournament, look no further than Hummelstown Lower Dauphin (Pa.).

In September, the Falcons went up to Pennsylvania Dutch country and won the Warwick tournament, beating Mountain Top Crestwood (Pa.) and West Chester East (Pa.). It was the first time Lititz Warwick (Pa.) had failed to win its tournament in nine years. Then, Lower Dauphin won its own Georgi Classic with a 1-0 win over Manheim (Pa.) Central.

That made a late September game against Hershey (Pa.) all the more important. Lower Dauphin's defense clamped down on the Hershey attack with all the might and of a national powerhouse, holding the Trojans without a shot in 60 minutes.

But the Lower Dauphin attack suffered, leaving the teams a goalless draw. It was the third consecutive tie between these two teams.

"We have such great senior leadership this year and they have just made it their goal, they want to keep people out of their circle," head coach Kreiser told the Harrisburg Patriot-News. "It's their circle and they don't want other people in it."

TOUGH CONFERENCE GETS A NEW LOOK

The collection of talent in the field hockey teams in the Suburban One League has been immense at times. About half the of the 27 teams in the league have sent at least one player to Division I All-America or a U.S. national team in the past decade.

But for 2002, there has been a reshuffling. Newtown Council Rock (Pa.), the 1994 PIAA AAA co-champion, has split into two districts, with the majority of students remaining at the Newtown campus, while the other half playing down the road in Holland, Pa.

That has set off a shuffling of the four SOL divisions, which has in turn reunited one of the nation's best rivalries and has broken up another.

You see, the race for the Patriot Division title in the SOL National Conference has not only been an eight-week sprint for what is usually a top-four seed in the District I championship (the qualifier for the state title in Pennsylvania), but it has been a pitched battle between Council Rock, Langhorne Neshaminy (Pa.), and Levittown Pennsbury (Pa.). For most of the 1980s and 1990s, the Patriot has perhaps had the most competitive divisional schedule in the United States, despite the fact that Neshaminy won the division 14 straight times at one point. The six divisional games between the three schools (division rivals face each other twice) would bring numerous fans and would often be determined by fortune or a singular unexpected action rather than by what was expected from the 22 players on the field.

The region's other great rivalry -- Buckingham Central Bucks East (Pa.) and Doylestown Central Bucks West (Pa.) -- were in the Colonial Division of the SOL National Conference. But at the close of the 1990s, the Patriots and the Bucks were placed in different divisions in the same conference, and would only be guaranteed to meet once.

Now, with the new Council Rock campus in Holland, the landscape has changed again. The Patriot Division will have Neshaminy, Pennsbury, Central Bucks East and Central Bucks West in the same division, along with Abington (Pa.) and Lansdale North Penn (Pa.).

Newtown Council Rock North (Pa.) will join Warminster William Tennent (Pa.), Bristol Harry S Truman (Pa.), Bensalem (Pa.), Perkasie Pennridge (Pa.), and Souderton (Pa.) in the Colonial Division.

In the American Conference, Holland Council Rock South (Pa.) joins Norristown (Pa.), Hatboro-Horsham (Pa.), Plymouth-Whitemarsh (Pa.), Cheltenham (Pa.), and Quakertown (Pa.) in the Liberty Division.

In the Freedom Division, the schools are Fairview Village Methacton (Pa.), Wissahickon (Pa.), Upper Dublin (Pa.), Upper Moreland (Pa.), Upper Merion (Pa.), and Springfield-Montgomery (Pa.).

More shuffling is likely in 2002 when a third Central Bucks school is carved from the East and West districts.

SHE'S A LADY

Catherine Somits puts her kilt on, one button at a time, just like everybody else at West Chester (Pa.) East. It wasn't always that way, though. Take her self-evaluation when she started playing field hockey in seventh grade.

"I was a nutty kid," Somits admitted to The Philadelphia Inquirer. "I was a huge tomboy. I still am. But I dress more like a lady now."

Somits has been a starter for Diane Horsey's group since her freshman year, and, with substantial graduation losses from the Class of 2002, she will have to make an immediate impact. And Horsey, a coaching legend in Chester County, is asking a little more of her than your average junior.

"Catherine has a lot of potential," she told the Inquirer. "Whenever she's on, look out."

SCHOOL SPLIT REMINDERS ARE EVERYWHERE

To understand the nature of the splitting of the Council Rock school district in lower Bucks County, all you have to do is go up the driveway of Newtown Council Rock North (Pa.). A huge boulder on the front lawn is half the size it used to be; the other half is now adorning the new campus at Holland Council Rock South (Pa.).

There is a similar spirit of sharing amongst the two field hockey teams now in the district. Both teams' uniforms are predominantly navy, same as the combined school.

However, the Columbia blue trim on some of the teams' uniforms is being replaced. Council Rock North wears navy and silver; Council Rock South navy and gold.

The two field hockey teams are even sharing practice facilities for the time being. Since landscaping and the preparation of fields is not yet complete at CR South, both teams have been practicing at CR North in the preseason.

And for the annual Hockeyrama playday, both teams acted as host, though the North campus held the event.

But there is still a kinship amongst the two teams. When a CR North player had to be helped off the pitch after being hit in the mouth with a stick, she walked by the huddling CR South players, who gave a cheer of encouragement to their fallen former teammate.

For last year's notes, click here.