Scholastic Notes

Pennsylvania

PENNSYLVANIA FINALS SHOW VALUE OF INDIVIDUAL FINISHING

Jill Civic was practicing on a turf pitch at Lehigh University the day before the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association Class AAA final when she tried a move at goal.

Actually, it wasn't the prettiest thing that Emmaus (Pa.) head coach Sue Butz-Stavin had ever seen; Civic was taking the ball right into her defender.

"You have all that space," Butz-Stavin told her junior left winger upon pulling her aside. "You're a better field hockey player than that."

So, when Civic stole an outlet pass in the final five minutes of the Class AAA final against Buckingham Central Bucks East (Pa.), she sized up her competition.

"I saw it on my stick, saw one defender to beat, and I saw her stick out to the side," Civic said. "I saw an opening between her legs, put it there, and was in on the goalie."

She then managed to slip the ball into the cage to give Emmaus a 2-1 win over C.B. East. It was the Hornets' record fifth PIAA field hockey title. For the Patriots and head coach Jeff Harding, it was the second straight one-goal loss in the PIAA final.

East had been able to tie the game in the 51st minute when Ashley Kelly took a nice flip pass on a well-designed corner, responding to Lindsay Quay's corner goal in the game's opening 53 seconds.

"My objective for the game had been to set the tone for the first five to seven minutes," Harding said. "But (Emmaus) set the tone early. They are a great hockey team, and a very skilled team."

In the Class AA game, Kingston Wyoming Seminary (Pa.) was able to get by with individual finishing in a 2-0 win over Lehman Lake Lehman (Pa.). But for sophomore Anne Marie Janus, the finishing was a little different from what she is used to. Janus was one of the top players in the U-16 division of the 2001 National Futures Tournament because of long shots, especially on corners.

But in the Class AA final, her game-winning shot in the second half came on one of the shortest shots imaginable. She took a rebound off a Lauren Powley corner blast and put in a lift from right off the goal line.

"We had Lauren take most of the long shots," Janus said. "They do want us to shoot if we get open in the circle."

Janus also showed a keen passing eye, setting up a fine field goal in the last minute of regulation, taking advantage of a Lehman defense that pushed forward in hopes of tying the game.

"We just came with what got us here," said Wyoming Seminary head coach Karen Klassner. "Short passing game, skills, speed, and playing as a team."

BOMB THREAT CHANGES GAME, RILES SOUTH WESTERN

The last thing the American field hockey community needed was a security alert, given the events of September 11, 2001.

But, in the latest of a string of "copycat" bomb threats around the Pittsburgh area, the city park where Hanover South Western (Pa.) was supposed to meet Pittsburgh North Allegheny (Pa.) was evacuated shortly before the two teams were supposed to meet in a Round of 16 match for the PIAA Class AAA tournament.

No device was found, but the game was moved up the road to the lighted field at North Allegheny High.

But if it was the intent of the caller to give North Allegheny a home-fiel advantage, it did not work; South Western beat North Allegheny 4-2.

WARWICK THWARTED BY EMMAUS DEFENSE

In the week before meeting Lititz Warwick (Pa.) at the Super 2 Challenge at Muhlenberg College, Emmaus (Pa.) head coach Susan Butz-Stavin took aside her defense and gave them a lecture, borne of 498 scholastic wins and the experience of coaching stifling defenses that have yielded as little as one goal in an entire season.

"Stay with your mark inside the 25, and be patient," she would say. "They are going to try to go 1-v-1, dazzle you with some stickwork, but keep your feet moving and be patient."

Apparently left back Kristina Edmonds, center back Jen DeAngelis, right back Katie Young, and sweeper Ashley Grossman absorbed the wisdom and applied it. The quartet played near-perfect defense in a 2-0 win over Warwick, the second-ranked team in the TopOfTheCircle.com Top 10 for the week of Oct. 2. Although the Warriors had the edge on skills, the No. 8 Hornets interposed and thwarted the Warwick attack.

It took only about 10 minutes for Emmaus to take the lead when Jill Civic put in a rebound from in close. Minutes later, forward Lindsay Quay scored a similar goal.

"They found some weaknesses and executed extremely well, getting the ball into the circle and getting multiple shots," said Warwick head coach Bob Derr.

The Hornets and their shocked supporters had one thought: Could it be this easy?

"We knew they were a hard team, and they were a great challenge," Edmonds said. "This was another challenge that we had to meet; they were really tough competition."

Warwick, a team which had won every game in the last 2 1/2 seasons -- a streak of some 70 games -- was put in a place it was not accustomed: playing from behind. To the Warriors' credit, they did quite well, holding Emmaus without a shot in the second half. However, Emmaus' second-half goalkeeper Kristin Hodavance (Katie Fox is the Hornets' first-half keeper) was extremely stout, stopping every shot thrown at the cage.

"I have to give Warwick all of the credit: we couldn't get even a single shot off in the second half," Butz-Stavin said.

"We didn't make the necessary adjustments to counteract what they were doing: we weren't prepared for what they were doing in the first half," Derr said. "In the second half, though, we had multiple corners, but couldn't get the ball in the cage. Hopefully, we can learn from this and get better."

SMELLIN' WHAT THE ROCK IS COOKIN'

Newtown Council Rock (Pa.) is reknowned for playing one of the nation's toughest schedules. But the schedule that head coach Pat Toner cooked up 2001 went above and beyond all boundaries, even for a team that made the state's Class AAA semifinals in 2000 without a single senior who matriculated to an NCAA Division I field hockey program.

In total, the team played, play, in the first month of the season, up to five teams ranked in the nation's Top 10 either at the end of 2000 or preseason 2001.

After playing Souderton (Pa.) and 2000 No. 1 Lititz Warwick (Pa.), in the span of 26 hours, The Rock played Lansdale North Penn (Pa.) and Doylestown Central Bucks West (Pa.) before the annual interstate showdown with Medford Lakes Shawnee (N.J.).

The Indians two "rivalry" games -- Levittown Pennsbury (Pa.) and Middletown Neshaminy (Pa.) -- followed, then a trek to the Georgi Cup at Hummelstown Lower Dauphin (Pa.), and a match against 2001 state runner-up Buckingham Central Bucks East (Pa.)

Sound tough? Well, Council Rock came through as well as any elite field hockey team could be expected to, with a record of 6-3-2.

What is amazing is the maturity of the defense, led by fullback Becky Allahand and goalkeeper Steph Manzo.

Manzo, to give you a little perspective, had never played a minute of varsity field hockey before the 2001 season. However, she was perhaps more prepared for the onslaught of the first 11 games of the schedule than anyone, having spent time at Old Dominion field hockey camp with alumna Marybeth Freeman.

Freeman and Manzo come from a long, navy line of excellent Council Rock goalkeepers, including the likes of Katie Coyle, Jen Liese, Lee Bednarcik, and Jamie Hill.

But it must be said that Manzo was the only one to have had a baptism by fire like she did in 2001. This included a penalty-stroke shootout loss to Lower Dauphin in the Georgi Cup final. There were plenty of lessons learned when she faced a stroke in the 54th minute of play against Central Bucks East on Sept. 25.

"I was trying to use my hands too much instead of getting my whole body in front of the ball ... (but) just trying to stop it with my hands wasn't getting the job done," Manzo told The Bucks County Courier-Times. "I just focus on the ball and try to stop it: I don't look at the other player's eyes or try to anticipate, and I think that's working for me."

And it did. She repelled Laura Crandall's stroke attempt, keeping the score level at 1-1.

HORNETS BOUNCE BACK FROM OPENING-DAY LOSS

Emmaus (Pa.) has been one of the most consistently dominant field hockey programs of the 1990s. It has been a consistent Pennsylvania state title contender, it had two of the greatest shutout streaks of all time, and produced numerous scholastic All-Americans, including TopOfTheCircle.com Player of the Decade Cindy Werley.

The Hornets' power over opposing teams has been nothing short of intimidating. Take, for example the record that Emmaus has had against Northampton (Pa.) since 1979: 59 wins, four losses, four draws.

Yet, Emmaus has had innumerable problems against Buckingham Central Bucks East (Pa.), the 2000 state Class AAA runner-up. The Hornets, again, found themselves losing to the Patriots in 2001, leaving head coach Susan Butz-Stavin looking for answers as well as the handful of wins needed to become the second American scholastic field hockey coach to reach the 500-win mark.

She might have found those answers more quickly than she ever imagined.

Over the course of a 2-0 win over Northampton, a scant three weeks after losing to Central Bucks East, Butz-Stavin was presented with a team which was not only relentless, but resilient. A missed penalty stroke in the first half did not deter the team's attack, even against age-group national team goalkeeper Kelly Augustine.

"We didn't play well as a team against East and it was a wake-up call for us," Butz-Stavin said. "We learned a lot about ourselves."

New Jersey

JERSEY FINALS FOLLOWED ECONOMIC THEORY

After a few thousand field hockey fans got together on a warm day at The College of New Jersey, long-time observers couldn't help wondering if Karl Marx had written the script.

That is because the phrase, "the rich got richer" could suffice to describe aspects of all four games.

Overall, the New Jersey state finals featured eight teams playing for four titles. All eight teams had either won state titles, or had appeared in a state final, since 1996.

For Voorhees Eastern (N.J.), the phrase, "the rich got richer" applied to the team's third straight Group IV title -- a 3-0 win over Flemington Hunterdon Central (N.J.) -- as well as to top senior Lori Hillman.

Seconds before pregame warmups, she was told that the team to which she had committed for 2002 -- the University of Michigan -- had just beaten Maryland in the NCAA final. The extra bounce in her step upon receiving the news translated into her innate ability to control the midfield in the defeat of Central.

Moments after her final game, she jammed a blue baseball cap emblazoned with a maize "M" and reflected on the road ahead for her even as she was enjoying perhaps the happiest day of her life.

As perhaps the nation's top field hockey prospect in the Class of 2002, the next year is already planned out for her, including possible stints with the U-19, U-23, or possibly the senior women's national team.

"Playing for your country, especially after everything that has happened, is such an amazing feeling," she said as a number of her teammates waved American flags to raucus Eastern fans in the stands. "I have had that feeling (on age-group teams), and I always want to experience that."

But Hillman was not the only hero. Eastern junior Shaun Banta, as is her wont, scored a critical goal at a critical juncture.

"Everyone gets up for the state final," she said. "It's just so exciting to play in front of this many fans, and playing on the turf."

And Hunterdon Central, in trying to win its first state title since 1996, got an heroic performance from goalkeeper Alyson Lyons. Despite being outcornered and outshot badly, she was able to keep her team in the game.

"It was the most shots we ever had in a game before," Lyons said. "We worked really hard on the corners, and I didn't have to get to too many rebounds. I had to give it my all; there was nothing more I could do."

Eastern, in pushing their winning streak to 58 games and their unbeaten streak to 65, not only were able to win their third straight state final, but showed why they may be a favorite for another in 2002. Besides Banta, players like Rachel Dawson, Catherine Badolato, and nationally-recognized goalkeeper Caitlin Gregory will be coming back for Heilig.

For Moorestown (N.J.), the "getting richer" aspect was tying the national record for state championships. Since Severna Park (Md.) and Virginia Beach Frank W. Cox (Va.) fell short of extending the National Federation record they share, the Quakers had a chance to re-tie the record of 13.

Thanks in part to seniors Colleen Dalon and Allison Zeitz, Moorestown was able to succeed with a 2-1 win over Madison (N.J.) in the nation's toughest state tournament, Group II.

The 2001 team was not made of the same stuff as the highly-touted 2000 team, which perhaps had more talent than any in the country but fell short of the state title game.

"They set a goal for themselves after the loss to Shore Regional in the Central Jersey final," said head coach Joan Lewis. "I looked at it as a new year, because you're coming in with a new team every time. This team was spectacular."

This Quaker team had to best a Dodger team which evaded a torturous North Jersey tournament stacked with a number of great teams.

"They're skilled and tough," said Ann Marie Davies, the Madison coach. "We didn't see them at all; we just had to go out and play our game. We gave it our best shot."

In Group III, the team that got richer was Ocean City (N.J.), which beat a game Washington Warren Hills (N.J.) squad. Head coach Trish LeFever has had a number of great individuals on her championship teams, such as U.S. Junior World Cup captain Abbey Woolley and the dynamic Jenee Doto and Cory Picketts from 1999's team.

So, what made this Ocean City team tick?

"We preach that this is a program," LeFever said. "The kids don't want to be the ones who don't excel."

On the other side, Warren Hills lost its third game in three attempts at Lions' Stadium.

"One of these years, we're going to get the 'W' down here," promised coached Laurie Kerr. "This team gave everything they had; I'm really proud of them."

Martinsville Pingry (N.J.) repeated as state champions, this time in the Group I final. Playing some splendid hockey in the forward two-thirds of the pitch, the Big Blue did something only one other team has ever done.

The feat was beating Nancy Williams and West Long Branch Shore Regional (N.J.) in a state championship final.

For Williams, this 1-0 loss was not taken as hard as it might have in other years. Aside from top guns Ali-Shames Dawson and Amanda Arnold, this Blue Devil team did not have the individual athletes of past years.

But the trademark Blue Devil desire was certainly evident: senior back Kristin McConville played with a broken arm and Lauren Hennessey competed with a broken jaw.

"If you were to tell me that, with the group I was looking at August 15, we would go 22-2 and end our season on the Trenton turf, I'd take it," said Williams, the nation's all-time winningest scholastic field hockey coach. "We graduated a lot of goals; and they had a great year. I'm shocked at how well they did."

The main catalysts for the the Big Blue are a pair of cousins: Lea Salese and Jessica Saraceno. They play their varsity hockey as well as their club hockey side by side.

"We have such awesome chemistry," Salese said. "We play really well together."

"It's going to be our last game together," Saraceno said. "but maybe we'll play each other in college."

EASTERN AND RYNO GET BY CHEROKEE AND MOTHER NATURE

Kate Ryno, goalkeeper for Voorhees Eastern (N.J.), the No. 1 team in the TopOfTheCircle.com Top 10 for the week of Oct. 2, has a very special pair of goalkeeper shorts, with the initials F.E.U. stenciled into the hem.

The letters represent the words, "Forever Eastern United," which seems to encapsulate the spirit of these Vikings. The team has withstood just about everything thrown at them, including a surprise shower.

About two minutes before the end of pre-game warmups before a major confrontation between Eastern and Marlton Cherokee (N.J.), several wind gusts of more than 30 miles an hour blew heavy rain over an already soaked pitch.

The game officials huddled with the coaches, captains, and athletic director at the scorers' table for several moments, before the decision was made to play.

And Ryno seemed to have the best time out there. Despite fighting rain and mud, she was able to hold off Cherokee long enough so that Shaun Banta's goal in the closing minutes held up for a thrilling 1-0 win.

"You still have to play the same team, play the same way, no matter what the conditions," Ryno said. "Every game is big, and you have to play every team the same way."

"She's an outstanding goalkeeper who handles adversity," head coach Danyle Heilig said. "She stepped up and told herself that she wasn't going to let (the rain) get her down. I don't quiver when she gets in there."

Ryno got a major assist from one of the members of her corner defense unit. In the second half, a Cherokee corner blast appeared to be goalward bound, but left-poster Mary Beth Miller deflected the ball out of danger.

"It was either going to hit my body (for a stroke) or hit my stick," Miller said. "Thank God it hit my stick."

The Vikings' season now stands at halfway, but Heilig knows that there are plenty of challenges remaining, including what could be a very competitive New Jersey Group IV tournament.

"We have (Medford) Lenape, Woodstown, Kingsway, and Lawrenceville (School)," Heilig said. "So, we still have the majority of our schedule left. A game like this is good for them."

But despite the intensity of the contest, there were plenty of congratulatory hugs in the handshake line, especially between the two main attack generators: Eastern's Lori Hillman and Cherokee's Katie Morad.

"They were the best offensive team we've played all year," Heilig said.

IT'S OPEN SEASON ON A WEAKENED POWERHOUSE

"The're not the team they once were."

It's a quote you are beginning to hear more and more in the Greater Middlesex Conference where Piscataway (N.J.) is concerned.

The Chiefs have been the undisputed titan of north-central New Jersey for better than a couple of decades, putting outstanding teams on the field with superb and, occasionally, non-traditional athletes.

But head coach Jackie Fives resigned in 2001, leaving the Chiefs to find a new head coach (Heather Walker) and a new direction.

While the Piscataway team has been trying to gain consistency, its opponents have sought revenge for years of losses.

"The kids were so hyped up," said South Plainfield (N.J.) coach Fran Flannery said after a 1-0 double OT win over Piscataway. "This was the biggest game for them."

Similar comments were echoed when East Brunswick took a 1-0 win from Piscataway the same week of the South Plainfield match.

"The thing is, we won. It is such a big thing," said Bears coach Cindi Todoroff after the game. "Piscataway is always a big game for us (in the Greater Middlesex Conference)."

The season got worse for Piscataway in October. In a 6-0 shutout at the hands of Flemington Hunterdon Central (N.J.), stalwart goalkeeper Kristina Gagliardi suffered a dislocated shoulder.

However, you get the feeling that the Chiefs will somehow rally. Todoroff, who has seen a lot of Middlesex field hockey, has a warning for her peers.

"Give them a few weeks and they will put it all together," she told The Home News-Tribune.

"CLERICAL ERROR" YIELDS MAJOR PROBLEM FOR LAWRENCE, NJ SANCTIONING BODY

The Lawrence (N.J.) field hockey team is perhaps the single best field hockey program in the country that has never won a state championship -- in essence, the sports's equivalent of the Boston Red Sox.

The Cardinals, despite an incredible winning tradition -- some 90 percent of its games in September and October -- along with several Division I athletes and Team USA selectee Valerie Coyle, have had championships lost on late-season collapses, penalty stroke shootouts, and bizarre endings.

The team thought it might have had its best chance ever in 2001. Returning a number of good senior players, interim head coach Lauren Fares got the players to believe in their abilities and began to get them to work together perhaps as well as any Lawrence team in the last quarter-century.

The team won its first four games, including victories over cross-town rival Lawrence Notre Dame (N.J.) and state sectional champion Hamilton Steinert (N.J.).

But there was a problem. A transfer from The Pennington (N.J.) School, sophomore Ashley Russell did not sit out a required 30-day period, in accordinace with the rules of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association.

"We were made aware of it, and we reported it to the state," Lawrence athletic director Ken Mason said. "It was a clerical error on our part. We take full blame. It is really no one's fault. It's a tough rule, and we have to live by it."

The rule, put in place to prevent blue-chip basketball players from shopping their talents to private schools in northern New Jersey or football players from moving in with other relatives across district lines.

Yes, there are extreme situations in these sports, including the story of Amare Stoudamire, the high-school basketball player who, thanks to a tug-of-war between Nike and Adidas money, once attended an unlicensed, uncertified "school" in the basement of a North Carolina church.

But we aren't talking a corruptive move on the part of Russell here. Transferring schools does not automatically mean that the intent was to transfer teams.

Does a school need to prevent a transfer student from taking a test within the first 30 days of the school year so as to not "show up" the other students? Does a school chess club recruit from other schools (this does happen in Philadelpha and New York City, folks), and thus need to keep a player off its team for a month?

New Jersey is one of the tighest-ruled states in the Union when it comes to its sports sanctioning. It is not surprising, therefore, that neighboring states New York, Pennsylvania, and Delaware do not subject its athletic teams to many of New Jersey's rules.

It might be argued that, if the rules governing New Jersey sports were encumbering, then there would be a mad rush of players going over the border to play at private schools: basketball players to New York Archbishop Molloy (N.Y.), for instance, instead of playing at Jersey City St. Anthony's (N.J.).

However, the 30-day rule in New Jersey is one which also snares the wheat along with the chaff. It deserves a review.

NEW EGYPT: FAR ABOVE EXPECTATIONS

There is a field hockey team in New Jersey that went the first two weeks of the 2001 season unbeaten and unscored-upon.

No big surprise there; a number of teams can make that claim.

But would you believe one of them is Plumsted New Egypt (N.J.)?

The Warriors are one of a number of new field hockey teams that have been formed because of the division of school districts. New Egypt, for example, was carved out of a good chunk of the Upper Freehold Township district, which sent all of its students to Allentown (N.J.).

These days, the Warriors are not alone in the splintered districts. Manalapan Township now has two high schools, Princeton Junction West Windsor-Plainsboro (N.J.) now has North and South campuses and sports teams, and Overbrook (N.J.) is now three districts. And coming on line in 2002 is Medford Apache (N.J.), a complement to the existing Medford Lakes Shawnee (N.J.), Marlton Cherokee (N.J.) and Medford Lenape (N.J.) districts.

"There's no real secret: it's just hard work," Warriors coach Patty Nicholson tells the Burlington County Times. "I was cautiously optimistic that we could surprise some people. I knew it was there but I didn't know how much would come out. It's starting to come out but I think there's a lot more there. We can always be better than we are now."

Nicholson has had plenty of successes even before taking the New Egypt position. She has served for years as the middle-school field hockey coach in New Egypt, and her daughter Katie was a tremendous forward for Allentown and the U-16 national team in the late 1990s before matriculating to the University of Virginia.

And now, the new crop of Warriors are making their own way -- and, incidentally, not looking back. New Egypt is a team with no seniors, and no game scheduled against Allentown in 2001. The school districts, though they border each other, are even in separate leagues; New Egypt in the Burlington County Scholastic League, Allentown in the Colonial Valley Conference.

"I think this group is special," Nicholson says. "I don't think they would be too different than any group that played in middle school together. It's harder maybe on the juniors because they haven't had older players to look up to. Not having seniors probably made them closer."

CHANGE IN ATTITUDE

At the beginning of the 1990s, Burlington (N.J.) Township was a team at its wit's end. Dwelling in the basement of the BCSL's Freedom Division, the Falcons somehow could never find the fight to stay with the elite of their division.

Even when top-class players like Diana Porter and Jennifer Gibson got into the lineup, getting Township into the state tournament, one did wonder whether there would be lean years after their graduations.

But one indication of the strength of will that has been burned into the Township program by head coaches JoAnn Rell and Ann Contesti since 1994 has come in 2001. The Falcons, having won their opening two contests in the final half-minute of play, broke out of a late-game huddle, down 3-0 to Delran Holy Cross (N.J.).

A player's voice cut through the chatter: "We scored one goal with one second left and another with 20 seconds left. We've got 2 1/2 minutes left. I figure we can tie this game."

An early candidate for the All-Heart Award? Gotta believe.

New York

NEW YORK FINALS SOMEWHAT ANTICLIMACTIC

The New York Public Schools Athletic Association (NYPSAA) is the only sanctioning body that ships all 16 of its field hockey semifinal teams to one spot for semifinal and final round play.

This can often change the perspective of the participants; such a physical and emotional investment can be made in the semifinal round that the championship game can be seen as an afterthought.

This pitfall caught more than one team in its trap in 2001. In Class D, for example, Bronxville (N.Y.) came out flat against Marathon (N.Y.), missing the first two penalty corners of the game.

Marathon jumped all over the opening, scoring six goals on penalty corners in a 6-0 win over the one New York public school field hockey team most affected by the September 11th terrorist attacks on Lower Manhattan. The Broncos play their field hockey only a few miles from Ground Zero.

Bronxville had been a great story in the run up through the sectional tournament, winning the necessary games even with a regular season beset by not only four losses, but a schedule that became crowded with makeup games.

But against Marathon and top gun Tiffany Marsh, it became too much.

"We did well in the beginning, keeping the game in between the 25s," Bronxville head coach Courtnie Smith told The Journal News. "Then, they started to execute their corners perfectly."

No kidding. Marsh had five goals.

"We worked on deception, variety, and perfect execution," said Marathon head coach Karen Funk. "It was one of the things we wanted to do, and I felt we were able to do."

In Class B, Garden City (N.Y.) had all sorts of motivation a possible meeting with 2000 nemesis Glens Falls (N.Y.). But the Trojans had to get by Brewster (N.Y.) in the state semifinals.

That not only took 80 minutes of on-field play, but it took more than the first group of five penalty strokes. It took the sixth round before sophomore Lauren Gallagher nailed the game-winning stroke.

"It's a horrible way to win or lose," said Garden City head coach Diane Chapman. "We just happened to be on the winning end."

How prophetic she was.

Not so long after the penalty stroke shootout, the "B" final was contested against Glens Falls. Both teams put forth a fantastic effort in playing to a 2-2 draw at full time.

But 17 minutes into 7-v-7 overtime, Glens Falls got the game-winner.

You got the feeling that the Trojans might have taken its third state title in four years if only it had a slightly easier time against Brewster.

"But, overtime in a state final?" Chapman told Newsday. "We have nothing to be ashamed about."

Warrensburg (N.Y.) had its own problems with defending Class C champion Rye (N.Y.). The Burgers could not adjust to Rye's speed, skills, and determination and dropped a 2-0 decision.

Warrensburg did manage a penalty corner in a scoreless first term, but never forced Rye goalkeeper Pam Jordan to make a save.

"They were playing great defensively," Rye forward Kelly O'Brien told The Journal News. "I felt that we were very nervous and a little uptight. We're used to having a lot of corners and a lot of shots."

That occurred in the second half, as O'Brien put in a pair of second-half field goals.

OUT OF GAS

When Port Washington Schreiber (N.Y.) met Massapequa (N.Y.) in a field hockey game in late September, it was a moment two years in the making.

That's the last time Schreiber High played in Class "A," the classification with the schools of the largest size.

Schreiber also had a new coach: Joe Lederer, after coaching the jayvees for 11 seasons, took over the reins.

After an early win, the Washingtonians were able to take a 1-0 lead over Massapequa -- the defending Nassau County sectional champions in Class "A" -- within five minutes of the opening whistle.

However, after Massapequa took the lead back three minutes after halftime, Port Washington slipped, yielding three goals in the final 11 minutes in a 5-1 loss.

For last year's notes, click here.