Scholastic Notes

Southern region

Texas

WORTH THE WAIT

The 2000 Southern Prep Conference championship was an agonizing ordeal for Fort Worth Trinity Valley (Tex.).

And this was the team that won the tournament.

You see, the 2000 season represented a watershed for a program that had never won a championship. It had come close twice, including a double-overtime loss in 1999 to Tulsa Holland Hall (Okla.).

But head coach Amanda Janney had a feeling, after a 5-0 record in the SPC South Zone, that TV could finally break through.

"They wanted it so badly," Janney said. "Our only two losses had been to Fort Worth Country Day School and to (Fort Worth) All Saints, so we felt pretty good going into the SPC tournament."

The SPC is, like its counterpart in the District of Columbia, a single-elimination championship played on consecutive days, making each subsequent game much tougher than most postseason tournaments.

Trinity Valley got off to a tremendous start, beating Fort Worth Country Day School 4-0, then beating Casady Oklahoma City (Okla.) 1-0.

There was plenty of anticipation for the Nov. 3 confrontation with Dallas Hockaday (Tex.), but there was one final obstacle -- the weather.

The rain that had been needed for the summer and early autumn decided to fall for the next three days, putting off the contest until a suitable day for play.

"That was tough, mentally, for the girls," Janney said of the delay.

Apparently, however, the rest helped. Sydney Schell and Kathe Phillips had field goals for Trinity Valley in a 2-0 win over Hockaday. It was the third straight shutout for TV in the SPC tournament.

THE HEAT IS ON

In August and September, the greater Dallas area went gone more than 70 days without rain, part of a summer with numerous days at more than 105 degrees.

Yet from all reports, the field hockey season in Texas went on apace, with little adjustments having been made. Most fields are in decent shape, having been irrigated, but are very fast because the grass has not grown very much.

At least one school, Dallas Greenhill (Tex.), has gone to a special hot-weather uniform, one which is made of a sheer breathable fabric with no sleeves.

Other teams, chiefly perennial power Dallas Hockaday (Tex.), have retained their traditional polo shirts even through the hot spell.

North Carolina

CHARLOTTE WINS, AGAIN

Julie Shaw, head coach of Charlotte (N.C.) Day School, didn't want her team to be psyched out before taking the field in the 2000 North Carolina Independent Schools Athletic Association (NCSIAA) final against Durham (N.C.) Academy.

After all, the Bucs had only beaten Durham 1-0 in the regular season. That Cavalier team did not have U-21 international Amy Stopford, and the pundits might have seen the final as being much, much closer.

But Charlotte came out strong, notching the game's first goal and allowing just five Durham shots in a 3-0 championship win.

"We were ready," Shaw told the Durham Morning Herald. "We knew it would be a tough game and we came out to play a tough one."

"They came out strong and fast this time," said Durham Academy head coach Judy Chandler. "My team got out of our game and started playing CDS's game."

The short passing game that characterized the Cavaliers gave way to a hit-and-run style, and the quicker Bucs banged in two goals in the second half to take the crown.

Durham's aggressiveness was also blunted by an early green-card booking of an important midfielder.

"The thing is, she had been yellow-carded by the same official earlier in the season," Chandler said. "I think that took away from us."

ONE AND DONE

The post-overtime stroke shootout has a number of hallmarks. Goalkeepers, soaked with perspiration from nervousness and/or effort, gather their faculties while straddling the goal line, ready to coil like a cobra ready to attack a mongoose.

Shooters dig their cleats into the grass or dirt near the seven-yard spot to get that perfect platform to spring into that one step necessary to flick the ball into the cage

Twice this year, Durham Academy has won stroke shootouts with a two-part formula: Amy Stopford at the stroke mark, and Sarah Leach in the goal cage.

Why? North Carolina's private-school league shootouts are golden-goal affairs; as little as one round of strokes can decide a match.

"I don't remember exactly why they did it," says Durham coach Judy Chandler, "but I like it, since getting five good strokers is hard at this level. Why prolong the agony?"

Durham's most important use of the one-round shootout came in the NCSIAA semifinals against Charlotte (N.C.) Latin. The teams tied 1-1 through 80 minutes, but that ended with Stopford's stroke.

Kentucky

COLLEGIATE PASSES EXAM

Wendy Martin has seen a lot in her decades coaching field hockey in Louisville. Most in her position -- trying to defend a state championship for a third time -- are wrapped in the moment, hoping that all of the little things done in August will help her players.

While her Louisville Collegiate team was shutting out Louisville Sacred Heart 3-0 in the 2000 championship final, she caught herself in a pensive moment.

"Everything was just going right," Martin told The Louisville Courier-Journal. "We were stopping their free hits, and I watched some of our passing and I was just like, 'Wow, how gorgeous.' "

The Amazons' win was well-earned, however. Sacred Heart had beaten Collegiate earlier in the season, and was the pundits' choice to win. But punditry, however, can err.

"I don't know what it was," Valkyries' coach Rocky Landry told the Courier-Journal, "but we just didn't play our game. We just weren't there."

The Zons, in winning their fifth Kentucky title in six years, got a pair of goals from Eleanor Martin in the second half, ensuring that Kat Wilburn's opener in the 12th minute would stand as the game-winner.