Field Hockey: Reserve defeats Taft

Event Details

The Reserve Field Hockey team headed down to Watertown for a Taft parents weekend game.  When we arrived, the gray clouds moved in and the rain started to fall. At first, our girls felt a little hesitant about getting out there to play, but once the starting whistle blew, they were in game mode.  The Big Green’s offense dominated early with some great passing combinations and a flurry of shots.  Jada Howard ’19 intercepted a defensive pass and scored to put us up 1-0.  After that, Taft turned up their momentum and got a few breakaways that called upon Acey Cai ’20 and Saadhya Bahudodda ’20 to play some heads up defense to stop Taft from getting into their attacking circle. Despite being up 1-0 at halftime, the first half was pretty evenly matched with Deerfield taking 4 shots to Taft’s 3, and Deerfield earning 3 corners to Taft’s 2.

The second half saw Taft turn up its intensity by generating much more offense. Janice Chen ’20 had 6 saves, and defenders Renee Ballou ’20, Emmeline Flagg ’18, Saadhya Bahudodda ‘20 and Cameron Heard ’19, along with Chen, stopped 6 penalty corners before Taft put one in the cage to tie the game at 1-1.  Instead of feeling defeated, Deerfield fought back.  Sasha Hinckley ’19, Renee Ballou ’19, Olivia Geraci ’19, Helen Niles ’19 and Sarah Jung ’20 fought hard to get the ball up field.  Ally Kell ’20 and Grace Mazur ’20 also helped in the midfield by intercepting passes and working the ball back up to the offense. With less than 4 minutes left in the game, Sasha Hinckley ’19 fired a beautiful pass to Jada Howard ’19 who then sent the ball up to Olivia Geraci ’19 who was at the 30-yard line.  Geraci then dodged two Taft defenders to set up a one-on-one with the goalkeeper; she then dodged the goalie and sent a blistering shot to the inside of the left post to give Deerfield the 2-1 lead with less than 4 minutes to go. Taft returned with a vengeance and kept pounding the defense.  Right before time ran out, Taft was awarded a penalty corner and a last chance to tie the game. They executed a fine corner, but just when it looked like they’d get a shot off, Cameron Heard ’19 cleared the ball out of the circle to end the corner and the game clinching the Deerfield win!