The girls left the locker room for the field today full of confidence and trust in their teammates. We’ve sensed this building on the field all week and got to see it come together this afternoon on our turf. The girls in green took the field against a talented, fast, and strong Hotchkiss team. Within the first minutes of the game, Hotchkiss took the ball down our field, threaded our defense, and earned a corner. They ultimately converted on that corner to take an early 1-0 lead. A time-out to remind our players that there were still 57 minutes of play left and to build from, and not dwell on mistakes, was all that was needed. Within a minute of the time-out, Deerfield had scored its first goal from Maggie Roche ’19 and the game was tied. Despite big plays on both ends, the score remained 1-1 at the half. Two goals by Mimi Pastor ’19 and a penalty stroke by Meredith Heaney ’19, Deerfield was in the lead 4-1 in the second half. Hotchkiss responded quickly from its own time-out with a goal of their own in our net making the tally 4-2 with 10 minutes left to play. The final minutes were tense as the ball was moved quickly from one end-line to the other, but as the clock ticked down the last seconds, Mimi Pastor ’19 had control of the ball on her stick in our offensive end and the DA girls knew they had the win. Big plays were made by Maddie Zavalick ’22, Meredith Heaney ’19, Hannah Roche ’21, and Sharon Kereke ’19. It was a team effort though, and when “shout-outs” were made after the game was done, every player was mentioned. Next up, we play Milton at Pomfret on Wednesday. Go Big Green!