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11/12/2016 11:00 PMAfter going 13-2-1-0 for the regular season, the Cougars’ field hockey squad suffered a 2-1 upset at the hands of Valley Regional in the semifinal round of the Shoreline Conference Tournament on Nov. 1. With a week off from game play, Head Coach Patsy Kamercia had time to reconfigure some things on offense heading into the Class S State Tournament and the adjustment paid off in the form of two victories for Haddam-Killingworth on its home field. The Cougars, who are the No. 3 seed in the bracket, started off things by routing No. 14 Wamogo on Nov. 8, after which HK slipped past 6th-seeded Immaculate by a 1-0 score in the quarterfinals two days later.
The Cougars (15-3-1-0) will now face No. 2 Stonington (15-2-1-0) in a semifinal contest at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 16 at East Lyme High School. The winner faces either No. 1 Westbrook or No. 4 Granby for the title on Saturday, Nov. 19 at Wethersfield High School.
“Each game is a huge game. The girls know they are one and done if they don’t win, so really our focus is taking things one game at a time,” said Coach Kamercia. “We knew we had to get our attack going. We had six different goal scorers in the first game of states, which was huge.”
Against Wamogo, HK’s offensive outpouring was highlighted by four goals from senior Brinley Anderson, while juniors Bella Cosenza and Celia Payfa, seniors Hannah Theriault and Rachel Senechal, and freshman Molly Anderson also found the back of the cage. In the assist column, siblings Molly and Brinley Anderson each had two, plus additional helpers came from Payfa (2) and Theriault.
“Everyone on the attack got involved, which says a lot about us,” Kamercia said. “It shows that teams playing against us have to worry about more than one person on offense. We definitely met our goal of the game.”
Cosenza gave the Cougars a 1-0 advantage following a feed from Payfa with 24:27 on the clock in the opening half, after which HK quickly netted four more scores. Molly Anderson found Theriault with 18:20 remaining, Brinley Anderson connected with Senechal for a goal at the 16:35 juncture, and Brinley Anderson assisted sister Molly’s goal with 11:38 before halftime. The intermission score stood at 5-0 in HK’s favor thanks to Brinley Anderson scoring unassisted at 9:32.
Brinley Anderson picked up right where she left off in the second half by notching two quick tallies at 20:37 (from Theriault) and 19:33 (from Payfa). Payfa then scored with 14:05 left in regulation to make it 8-0. With 11:17 remaining in the game, Molly Anderson assisted Brinley for the Cougars’ ninth and final goal of the game. Sophomore Abbie Bagnoli stopped four shots in net as the Cougars outshot the Warriors 18-5 and got nice jolt of confidence after getting upset in the opening round of its conference draw.
“We didn’t do well in Shorelines, but that was a serious wakeup call for us, so it was an important game for us,” said Coach Kamercia. “We took the loss in Shorelines and used it. It was fresh in our minds, so we used it to help us.”
It’s always crucial to have the right mindset at this pressure-packed point of the season and so the Cougars worked on their mental game as the State Tournament approached, while staying fresh by scrimmaging a traditional powerhouse from the SCC.
“We did a lot of different things in the week leading up to states. We had a lot of mental assignments in getting our heads back and bringing the team together again. We also focused a lot on chemistry because the mental aspect is almost as important as the physical this time of the year,” Kamercia said. “We also scrimmaged Hand, which was a good postseason scrimmage for us. We also concerned ourselves with fundamentals that will make us sharp to win. It was a productive week overall.”
HK was bitten by the injury bug early this year, but once those key pieces returned, the Cougars worked diligently to make sure they were in peak form for the most-important part of the season.
“We had an interesting start to the year. We played really well and were without some key players due to injury. The rest of the team knew that they had to step up for them,” said Kamercia. “When the players returned, we had another challenge in getting them back into the team, which led to some ups and downs. We kept winning, but we had games where we would tie 0-0 or win 1-0 and 2-1, so we needed to get our attack going. We also changed our formation to get more people on attack, which we used for the first time against Wamogo. You give up some people on defense with that formation, but it put us in a good situation now, and we won’t look past the game in front of us.”
From the Sidelines
Brinley Anderson, Julia Kostek, and Rachel Senechal were All-Shoreline Conference First Team selections this year, while Bella Cosenza and Celia Payfa made the Second Team. Hannah Theriault, Molly Anderson, Alise Greco, and Abbie Bagnoli were Honorable Mention.
The Cougars’ two regular season defeats were both by 2-1 margins and came against fellow Shoreline Conference Tournament semifinalist North Branford, plus SCC semifinalist Guilford.
In the regular season, HK scored 46 goals and allowed only 11, while posting 10 shutouts.