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11/02/2014 12:00 AMThe Westbrook field hockey team had already pulled off the improbable as far as coaches Janet Dickey and Emily McCabe Alger were concerned. With only 14 players on the roster, neither thought that they had enough bodies to even reach the Shoreline Conference championship game, let alone win it. The Knights did fight their way through the season and compete for the title against North Branford at Indian River Sports Complex in Clinton on Oct. 31, but dropped a close decision by the score of 2-0.
“We have 14 total girls on our squad and the fact that we’re here playing tonight is a gift in itself,” said Head Coach Dickey. “We couldn’t be happier that we got the opportunity to play here tonight. I thought we fought hard and I thought we played well.”
Assistant Coach McCabe Alger agreed, calling the fact that the Knights had made it to the final a miracle.
“I think the biggest hurdle that we have to come over all the time is that we can’t put fresh legs on the field. We don’t have five subs. We have to play every minute of every game,” she said. “It’s a beautiful little miracle that we’re even here because, when we start with 14 players, I would have literally laughed out loud if someone said we were going to be in the Shoreline finals game. With 14 players, I thought that was a complete impossibility.”
Westbrook came out firing, forcing five of their game-high eight penalty corners in the first half. The Knights weren’t able to convert either of them, however, as they have a young offensive front and an inability to the set up the play in practice.
“We’ve very inexperienced on attack and they play a very good, aggressive corner defense,” McCabe Alger said. “It’s a crazy season when you only have 14 kids. You can’t believe the things that you can’t do. You can’t live practice corners because you can’t take the risk of somebody taking a ball to the head by mistake because you’ll put somebody out and you won’t have enough people to play.”
Seniors Lili Dickey and Lydia Murphy did a lot of the work for the Knights, pushing the ball into attacking areas, although Westbrook could only generate four shots on goal. Things looked good as halftime approached, but North Branford converted on its lone corner attempt with 12.6 seconds to go to take the lead. The T-Birds’ Stephanie Hogan sidestepped a defender and set a rocket of a shot to the left of goalie Brooke Amendola to take the lead and give North Branford a huge momentum swing.
Midway through the second half, Hogan struck again virtually from the same spot on the field. There was a large crowd around the ball, but Hogan struck it well and again beat Amendola to her left.
North Branford finished with a 7-4 edge in the shots department, but even with its roster of 24 girls, it wasn’t a runaway victory.
“We also don’t want to lose sight of the fact that there are other Shoreline teams at home not playing tonight and by knowing who sat and watched this game, even with a 2-0 result, nobody is going to say we were dominated off the field and we were lucky to scratch and claw to stay in it,” McCabe Alger said. “It was a very even game with the difference being that they put two balls in the net and we didn’t put any. It’s not like we got dominated. We played well.”
Westbrook’s season isn’t done as they still have the Class S State Tournament to look forward to. The message to the squad will be very clear from Dickey following this performance.
“If we play like this, we’ll be fine,” she said.