Lackey is eliminated by Northern

Field hockey team falls in opening round

Friday, Oct. 30, 2009

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by MICHAEL REID Lackey's Allison Beyer, left, and Northern's Julia Hause chase after a loose ball in Monday's game. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

One of Northern first-year head coach Nicole Kerfoot's biggest gripes this season has been her team's lack of communication on the field.

The Patriots improved that facet of their game Monday, but also let their actions speak for them in a 5-0 win over visiting Lackey in the first round of the Class 3A South regional playoffs.

The eighth-seeded Patriots (8-7) will now travel to Chopticon to tackle the top-seeded Braves on Thursday. During the regular season, Northern battled back from a 2-0 deficit, but ultimately lost in penalty strokes.

"It was a very close game last time we played them," said Northern senior Meghan Brown, who scored a natural hat trick against the Chargers. "Unfortunately, they got the win over us, but I'm very anxious [to play them again]."

"If we play like we played today," Kerfoot said, "I think we'll do well."

And the way they played against Lackey was with that long-awaited for communication on the field.

"They actually came together and talked and passed really well and got back on defense," Kerfoot said. "Everything I've been looking for all season finally fell into place today."

"I don't know," Northern senior Julia Hause said why talking was such a barrier. "I think when we get frustrated we don't communicate as much, but once we get in the flow, we talk much better and get more spread out."

Northern jumped into the lead when Liz Huxoll backhanded a shot past Lackey goalie Sara Willett (15 saves) 14 minutes 41 seconds into the first half. Less than two minutes later, Tayler Schaefer redirected a crossing pass into the open side.

"We tend to play a lot better at home, so I kind of anticipated we were going to come into this with a bit of a disadvantage," Lackey head coach Rachael Wilding-Rizor said of trailing early on. "But that's normal for any team."

The dagger into the Chargers' heart came when Brown scored her first of the game as time expired in the first half.

"We were very confident," Brown said of the Patriots' mindset at halftime.

Like the UPS, Brown delivered again as she added two second-half goals to round out the scoring.

"I was so happy because I wanted the win real bad," said Brown, who now has five goals on the season. "To score the last ones to ensure our victory felt really good."

"I'm blessed with an exceptional group of ladies that stayed positive through the whole thing," Wilding-Rizor said of her team's perseverance throughout. "And for that I'm very thankful."

Willett added, "I thought as a team overall we played way better than we have usually. I thought we did really good."

Though ninth-seeded Lackey (3-11) lost 12 seniors last season, it still finished the season with an identical overall record to that of 2008.

"I'm proud of my girls, I am," Wilding-Rizor said. "They worked very hard. The coach is important, but not as important as having that good group of kids to back you up and work real hard for you."

"We had a really great season," Willett said. "We lost the whole field last year so to put all the junior varsity people from last year on the field, it's just amazing that we tied last year's [record]."

mreid@somdnews.com