Coming off of a losing season (9-11) last year, the girls’ field hockey finished with an overall 13-5 record this fall. The team dominated in its games against Pennsauken, securing a 7-0 win early in the season and another win later in the season, 8-2. Further evidence of their improvement shows in their victories against Hopewell Valley and Florence, two schools who had given them tough competition in past seasons.
Senior Olivia Marinelli attributes the girls’ success to the influx of freshmen who joined the team this season.
“We definitely have freshman domination, there’s so many of the girls,” Marinelli said. “That’s a big difference, and yeah just mainly an underclassmen-dominated varsity team which is really great for future growth in the future for the team.”
Among the team’s strongest competitors are Delran and Northern Burlington. Head Coach Sara Skvir said their loss against rival Northern Burlington has gotten better this season compared to past years. Last season they lost in their two matches to the Greyhounds 4-0 and 3-0, but this season the girls kept the score closer, losing 2-1 and 1-0.
“So during the season, Northern Burlington is our biggest rival,” Skvir said. “They won the division last year. They won it again this year. It’s a close, always a close game with them. And we could have won. I feel like we should have won, but they, you know they ultimately, you know, it’s a one-goal game, and they got it.”
Delran is typically a team rival, but according to Skvir, the Bears weren’t as competitive this year. The Lady Pirates won both of their matches against Delran.
After achieving two separate streaks of more than five wins over the course of the season, Skvir said collaboration and experience have been big factors in the team’s success.
“So we’ve been doing a really nice job compared to last year, working well together. We’re a little bit older this year. We didn’t lose as many girls from last year,” Skvir said. “We’re scoring more goals, which is what we had a problem with last year and just making connections on the field.”
Junior Lila McDermott also speaks about the girls’ abilities to connect as a team and play harder.
“A big contribution would definitely be our way that we have learned to connect our passes and our communication, especially with playing harder teams since we played Moorestown and RV, which obviously were tough losses but they helped us with seeing the higher skilled teams,” McDermott said.
Not only has the overall record for field hockey improved this season, but so has the number of goals and team stats. Skvir says this is because of drills done during their practices.
“We do a lot of offensive shooting drills, tipping drills, which is like standing on the post and you know, getting, like, the wide shot, playing off the rebound, tipping it in,” Skvir said. “Last year we were a stronger defense. So this year, I think we’re a stronger offense.”
After graduating multiple seniors at the end of both of the past two seasons, McDermott speaks about how the team has overcome such obstacles.
“We last year had lost a decent amount of seniors so we have a big underclassman team. This year we only have five seniors so it has been difficult connecting as a whole new team, but I think we have adjusted well,” McDermott said. “Last season was also a big underclassman team so we’ve been adjusting for the past two years, but I would say that we’ve picked it up better this year than last year.”
Throughout the season Skvir has recognized girls that have improved not only this season but in past seasons as well. She is particularly proud of captains Ally Yodis, Lauren Brown, and Lila McDermott. She has also been impressed by sophomore Avva Smith and freshman Renee Secouler.
“I’m really impressed with them, especially starting Renee Secouler. She’s been starting for me as a freshman, and she’s improved a ton going from, you know, a freshman, like being thrown into varsity… it was like a shock to her, but she’s really stepped up and made a lot of adjustments…” Skvir said. Avva’s kind of all over the field in like a good way. She plays really good, strong defense. I can push her up on the front line. She scores goals. Her and Lila connect well together. So they would say, like more offensively, standing out and then defensively Ally Yodis and Lauren Brown are definitely helping back on defense.”
As a captain, McDermott, a junior, said she enjoys being someone her team can look up to and always come to for advice.
“As a captain I feel like the biggest part for me is like displaying to my team my leadership qualities and making sure they know they have someone to communicate with when they have a problem either with the team or just outside, knowing that they have someone to talk to,” McDermott said.
Preparing to graduate, Marinelli finished her last season of field hockey as a CHS Pirate. She said she will miss her teammates as well as her coaches – both Coach Skvir and Coach Jackie started coaching high school field hockey together during Marinelli’s freshman year.
“I’ll miss the girls obviously. I’ll miss the home games. The coaches because the coaches both started coaching the year I was a freshman, so we have been through the past four years together,” Marinelli said. “Being a part of it with Skvir and Jackie has been so fun since we started at the same time.”
Ending the season, the girls made a great effort but fell to Point Pleasant Boro (6-0) in the third round of playoffs.
