Scholastic Notes

Southern region

North Carolina

EAST CHAPEL HILL RESILIENT IN WIN OVER CHAPEL HILL

East Chapel Hill (N.C.) could not be blamed if it was angry at losing its preseason national No. 3 ranking in the TopOfTheCircle.com Top 10 thanks to an early loss to Charlotte (N.C.) Country Day School.

But the Wildcats refused to dwell on the loss, beating Pac-6 rival Chapel Hill 4-0. The attack line of top recruit Michelle Kasold, Amy Nau, Elizabeth Williams and Laina Balafas were particularly strong in the second half, opening with a goal in the 32nd minute and going on from there.

"This was a really good game, and it's great for us to have this competition," Kasold tells the Durham Herald-Sun. "This rivalry is really good for field hockey, too."

The Cats improved to 4-1 with the win.

Kentucky

HOW 'BOUT ASSUMPTION'S APPLES?

The Apple Tournament in Louisville is rivaled only by the Independent School League (ISL) championship tournament in the important of momentum.

As many as four games in as little as five days can determine which team in the city is the one to beat for the rest of the year.

Louisville Sacred Heart (Ky.) coach Lainey Habeeb knew this, and pushed to have the championship game played as scheduled despite the onset of rain that day.

"I fought like crazy to play last night," she told The Louisville Courier-Journal. "We were coming off a big win."

The extra day off benefitted state champion Louisville Assumption in the end as the Valkyries took a 2-0 win. Over the course of the four-game tournament, Assumption outscored the opposition 24-0.

That's a way to establish yourself.

"I just have a lot of hungry forwards who know how to put the ball in the net," said Assumption head coach Debbie Judd.

Chief amongst them was Taylor Florence, whose goal in the 19th minute was all the Valkyries needed.

LOGJAM DOESN'T FAZE MARTIN

Louisville-area hockey pundits are having a hard time picking out a winner for the 2003 season, even though the annual Apple Tournament will put the annual bulls-eye on its champion.

In 2002, Louisville Collegiate (Ky.) won neither the Apple tourney nor the state championship -- no mean feat when Wendy Martin's group went 20-2 for the season. That's right; the only two losses were in championship finals.

As such, people aren't putting Collegiate -- Kentucky's dominant figurehead the past decade -- at the top of the heap in preseason.

"It's so much fun to see, because anymore it's tough to tell who will come out on top," Collegiate coach Wendy Martin told The Louisville Courier-Journal. "I don't see a No.1. It could be anybody, and you wouldn't have been able to see this type of parity 10 or 12 years ago."

Debbie Judd, whose Assumption team won both titles, concurs.

"That was last year," she tells The Courier-Journal. "This is a new team."

For last year's notes, click here.