Cougars Take Rivalry Showdown In Field Hockey

Looking to improve on a 2013 campaign that saw several one-goal losses, the Chesapeake field hockey squad opened its 2014 season on September 9 with a 9-0 pounding of rival Northeast in a match that started close before slipping away from the host Eagles in the second half.

Senior forward Megan Eisenhardt led the way with a hat trick and junior Jordan Latham contributed two goals, but the victory resulted from a team-wide effort. McKenna Dunmyer, Amber Singer, Jourdan Jones and Bridgette Tayman all scored while getting off 45 shots.

As Chesapeake Head Coach Joan Johnson explained, assists by Anna Bauer, Renee Duffy and Marissa McDonnell were just as important as the scores.

“Our passing game was on and the girls were communicating,” Johnson emphasized after the game. “We made changes where we needed to. It was nice that so many people scored because I believe that it’s not a person that scores, it’s a team that scores, and an assist is far more important than a goal.”

Northeast junior goalkeeper Cat Shriver had 22 saves, but constant pressure found its way through the Eagles’ defense as Northeast struggled to find an answer for its opponent’s speed. Chesapeake kept the ball mostly on its attacking third of the field and left Northeast in a constant effort to tackle.

The Cougars didn’t waste any time getting on the scoreboard as Eisenhardt recovered a deflected shot attempt off Shriver and scooped it into the goal 18 seconds into the match. Chesapeake notched their second goal minutes later on a corner play and increased their lead to 3-0 with 6:53 left in the half.

In the second frame, the Cougars picked up where they left off. Jones sent a 15-yard drive into the baseboard with 22 minutes left, and Lantham followed with her first score to give her team a 5-0 lead. Eisenhardt got back into the action by setting up Lantham for another goal on an assist, and then the forward earned her third goal to make it 7-0. With 17 minutes to play, Dunmyer scored on a corner and Tayman added the final score with under six minutes of play remaining.

It was a dominating effort by Chesapeake, and Northeast Head Coach Gina Ward expressed that her girls have to play tighter and demonstrate more awareness if they want to compete with teams as skilled as the Cougars.

“Chesapeake was a way better team than we were tonight,” Ward said. “I think unfortunately, this rivalry gets in our head sometimes. We come into it not in the right mindset because it’s our rivals, and I think that has a lot to do with it. We were beating ourselves, not going to the ball, anticipating, and going into a defensive stance when it was still our ball, so we were giving some things away.”

Despite her disappointment with the outcome, Ward still gave credit to the Cougars for their efficient performance, which Eisenhardt was a big part of.

“This year we are doing really well on our passing,” Eisenhardt said. “Last year, we basically snuck the ball down the field and this year, we’re doing well with passing the ball and seeing who is open and shooting at the goal instead of at the goalie.”

Those improvements helped the Cougars keep the ball away from Northeast, but Johnson said the varsity athletes still have much to work on before they can become one of the county’s elite teams.

“I would like to score on corners more and we missed shots totally off goal, you know not having an angle,” Johnson said. “Defensively, McKenna Dunmyer has always played midfield before and is now a defender, so she has done a great job and she stepped in when we needed another defender. We are still working out some kinks, but I think the passing game helped us tonight.”

JV Cougars Also Collect Shutout

With hat tricks by Alexis Arruda and Logan Beal, the JV Cougars shut out the rival Eagles, 10-0. Mikaela Gray added two goals and an assist, Riley MacDonald and Emily Hicks each scored once, Maddie Hood had an assist and Beal had two assists.

After the victory, Beal reflected on the inspired effort. “The best way to win a game is to set up a lot of assists and transition [the ball] down the field,” Beal said. “I think we did that well.”

Chesapeake JV Head Coach Sonny Jones was pleased with the team’s execution.

“We wanted to push up as much as we could, and we didn’t want our goalies to touch it and we succeeded on not letting our goalies touch the ball this time,” Jones said. “The girls were in the right spot when they needed to be, and that’s what we worked on. That’s what we will continue to work on for the rest of the season.”

On the opposite end, Northeast JV Head Coach Tori Shriver believes the team needs to increase their intensity and learn to persevere through their struggles. The team yielded four goals in a five-minute span that started near the middle of the first half. Shriver’s squad is young, and about 70 percent of the members have never played field hockey before, she said.

“They need to learn there are two halves to a game, and my philosophy is that you treat them like separate games because you can only learn from it,” Shriver said. “They didn’t take back the intensity level the way I wanted them to, but there was some growth.”