Reserve Field Hockey headed to Easthampton to take on a tenacious Williston squad. The first half saw Deerfield dominate with Jada Howard ’19, Sarah Jung ’20, Ally Kell ’20 and Grace Mazur ’20 putting plenty of pressure on the Bobcat defense. The ball stayed mostly in our offensive half except for a few Williston fast break opportunities that were promptly stopped at the midfield by Saadhya Bahudodda ’20. Saadhya was a rock on defense who just kept coming up with the big plays time and time again. Although the Big Green out shot the Bobcats 6-0, the score was still 0-0 at the half.
Williston regrouped during halftime and came out on fire. They dominated the first 7minutes of play by keeping the ball in their attacking end, earning a penalty corner and taking 3 dangerous shots on goal. Once again, Janice Chen ’20 came through and made the key saves to keep Williston scoreless. Emmeline Flagg ’18, Acey Cai ’20 and Cameron Heard ’19 along with Saadhya Bahudodda ’20 anchored the defense to keep Williston’s tenacious attack at bay.
After a timeout to regroup, Deerfield once again dominated play for the rest of the game. Olivia Geraci ’19, Sasha Hinckley ’19, Jada Howard ’19, Helen Niles ‘19 and Renee Ballou ’20 created many exciting scoring opportunities that just came up short. After 11 shots and 6 corners, Deerfield was still scoreless. As time and opportunity seemed to be running out, Deerfield persevered and earned a penalty corner with :03 seconds left on the clock. Sasha Hinckley ’19 started things off with a beautiful pass into Jada Howard ’19 who then avoided an oncoming defender with a well-timed pass to Renee Ballou ’20. Ballou ‘20 then made a quick decision to send a perfectly paced ball to the front of the goal to Olivia Geraci ’19 who then slammed the game-winner home with no time left on the clock! This was certainly one of our most dramatic wins of the season!