Adam Prudhomme
Beaver Staff
NDSS’ girls field hockey team viewed Monday’s meeting with the Holy Cross Crusaders as a potential preview to the KASSAA finals.
Fortunately for NDSS they’ll have some time to retool before that hypothetical meeting, as the Crusaders proved to be too much in their lone regular season meeting, sailing to a 6-1 victory on the turf at Kingston’s Invista Centre field.
Napanee spent the first five minutes on the attack but couldn’t generate any scoring with their possession. Once the Crusaders got rolling they quickly took control of the game, finding the back of the net for a pair of quick goals.
NDSS’ Georgia Gillian got her team on the board with a nice feed from Megan Morrow to cut the deficit to 2-1.
Any thoughts of a comeback were quickly extinguished however as the Crusaders answered back within two minutes to restore their two goal advantage. They added three more in the second half to secure the 6-1 win.
“Some pressure (from Holy Cross) was sustained for too long on the back end,” said Hawks head coach Dave Stewart. “We just couldn’t clear that thing out. We seemed to have a problem marking that one player who was scoring their goals.”
Stewart said defensive coverage was one thing they’d work on in practice as they look to learn from their mistakes.
“They’re good and they have a lot of depth,” Stewart said of the Crusaders, who happen to be the two time reigning KASSAA league champions. “They were quick to the ball and we seemed to always be half a step behind them getting to the ball. They seemed to have that little extra in their step that we didn’t have and that could make the difference on moving that ball quickly.”
Despite the loss Stewart says the team is still confident in their abilities to challenge for the KASSAA title this year. He says they’ll take the lessons learned in Monday’s loss and look to address them for a potential rematch in the playoffs.
Napanee was able to shake off the loss quickly, winning their second game of the day just an hour later, topping the Ernestown Eagles 5-0. Morrow had four goals, Caroline Griffin, Amber Weese and Nikki Weese each had one.
With Monday’s split the Golden Hawks are now 3-1 on the season, which places them second in the standings behind the 4-0 Crusaders. Napanee will face La Salle and KCVI next Tuesday, against at the Invista Centre.