Sports in general are full of moments. Hundreds of tiny moments that can define a game and even a season.
Even though the Middletown High School Varsity Field Hockey team has had plenty of moments this season, the one that could really make a difference came sometime after a 5-1 loss to the Urbana High School Hawks, on October 1st.
After the game MHS head coach Virginia Dumars, told the team that they were better than how they were playing in the traditional post-game meeting.
“Coach told us what we all knew was true,” said MHS senior defender Megan Robertson. “‘If we wanted to start winning, then we needed to pull together and play as a team.’”
It hasn’t always been bad for the Knights as they started the season 2-2 with big wins over the Frederick High School Cadets and the Catoctin High School Cougars, by scores of 3-0 and 6-0 respectively.
After the Catoctin game things began to head downhill as they lost to Century High School Knights 6-0 and Lingnaore High School Lancers 7-4, in games that should have been and were closer then the score indicated.
Then was the Urbana game which saw the Knights struggle to maintain any pressure on the Hawks
The problem for the Knights’ was a tendency to give in after getting down.
In the Century game, Middletown was down two headed into halftime, but gave up two quick goals to start off the second half and struggled to retain any type of momentum in the second half of the game.
The same thing happened in the Linganore and Urbana games; going down early and just not having enough offensive pressure to score in bunches and not enough defensive pressure to hold their opponents scoreless.
The Knights (2-5) have a chance to start fresh after Dumars’ postgame speech and it seems like the girls have taken it to heart in their preparation for Friday’s matchup against the Oakdale High School Bears.
“I think the team has really started to pull together,” said Robertson.
The Knights will look to change their luck against the Bears and seemed to have a good shot at doing it today, as the Bears are evenly matched with the Knights.
The Bears (3-4) were also coming into this game on the heels of a three game losing streak having been beaten by the Liberty High School Lions, the North Carroll High School Panthers, and the Walkersville High School Lions, before beating the Tuscarora High School Titans.
The Bears are led by their goaltender Melissa Semkiw, who has kept the Bears in games with her exceptional play in net and highlight reel saves.
The Knights will need to be aggressive in this game and will look to wear the Bears down as the unseasonably hot temperatures will have a factor on both teams but more to the team who goes down early.
Temperatures on Friday are expected to get up into the high 80’s and on a turf field which absorbs the heat more because of the black rubber pellets that make up part of the base layer of the turf, the heat could be stifling.
On top of that the game will be played at a 4 P.M. start team meaning that it will be around the heat of the day with temperatures reaching the highest they could all day long.
Middletown will look to their forwards to start a Knights attack that has been hot and cold all season scoring in bunches but also getting shutout or limited to one goal with frequency.
Middletown has used their three underclassmen forwards to power their attack with MHS sophomore Emily Delauter and MHS juniors Casey Aguilar-Gervase and Samantha Breeze to help power their offense.
The Middletown High School Knights JV Field Hockey team will look to remain over .500 against the Oakdale High School Bears on Friday.
The Knights (3-2-2) are coming off a scoreless tie against Urbana on October 1st in a game which saw both teams have plenty of opportunities to score throughout the game.
The game was kept scoreless by the play of Middletown freshman goaltender Madeline Hillsman, with Hillsman making crucial stops late in the game to keep the Knights alive.
The Knights have been led offensively by sophomore midfielder Delaney Hayden and freshman midfielder Rachel Walchuck who have done extremely well at creating chances and distributing the ball to their forwards.
The Knights have used a strong offense and a strong defense to prevent opponents from scoring while also using that defense to move the ball up the field quickly and use it to compliment their offense.
The game between the Knights and Bears will start at 5:30 P.M. after the end of the Varsity game.
