Although the Cinnaminson Girls’ Field Hockey team lost nine seniors last year, the team has kept a record of 8-10 this year and is aiming to make a run in the postseason.

Despite the initial questions and lower expectations when the season started, the team stayed optimistic and maintained a season strong enough to make the playoffs, which included two wins against rival Delran. However, the team was initially nervous when the season began because of the loss of the prior seniors.

“It’s going better than we thought it would be, because we didn’t really have a lot of girls that have played together for a while. So we were kind of scared going into it,” senior captain Maddi Katchuk said.

Throughout the season the team looked to fill in the holes left by the nine graduating seniors from last season, seven of which went to play at the collegiate level. Head Coach Sara Skvir is working to adjust to the loss of that group which helped lead the team to the second round of playoffs with a 14-3-1 record last season.

“So far we are still trying to find what really works for us, and the girls are doing a nice job at practice,” Skvir said.  “We’re young. We graduated with a lot of seniors last year, and we have two new goalies.”

Replacing the seniors has proved to be the biggest challenge for the team, especially when this year’s graduating group is smaller.

“A lot of our seniors went to play college field hockey, and a lot of us won’t, so it’s hard getting used to it, and not having them with us,” Katchuk said. 

The smaller senior class this year has allowed many underclassmen to have an opportunity to play and gain experience for upcoming seasons. 

“We’ve been spending a lot of time at practice putting that together, and finding what group really meshes on the front line, just trying new things and seeing what works,” Skvir said. “In the end, we’re just looking to get better as the season progresses.”

Skvir has put a big emphasis on working with the team to try and build chemistry, especially with the returning underclassmen. Freshman Avva Smith emphasizes the importance of this chemistry and communication among the players on the field. 

“I’d say we need to talk better on the field and communicate better. We also need to put more trust in each other,” Smith said. “But I’d say we’re working well being so new and young. We have a lot more freshmen and sophomores playing compared to last year, so I think we’re blending well right now.”

The team has worked their way to a 10-8 record throughout the regular season, with a 7-4 record within the division. Senior Caitlin Connolly and junior Olivia Marinelli lead the team in goals with five each, and sophomore goalie Sophia Flicker has amassed 132 saves this season. 

The Pirates secured the 10th seed in the South Jersey group 2 playoffs and are hoping to get past the second round, which has been a roadblock for the team in previous years.

“We definitely want to get past round 2 of the playoffs. That’s something we’ve been stuck with the last couple of years,” Katchuk said.

Today the team will head to Barnegat for the first round of the playoffs where they hope to make a potential postseason run.