Raiders pull upset of Peddie in Prep A tourney
By: Bob Nuse
Last year was a crazy one for the Hun School field hockey team.
Head coach Sarah Ostermueller was lost to an injury early in the season. The Raiders lost several close game and before they knew it, the season was over with just two wins.
But even when her team started slowly this season, Ostermueller was confident that eventually the Raiders would turn things around. Over the past month, that has certainly been evident.
"The whole mentality of the team has changed," said Ostermueller, whose team opened the state Prep A tournament with a 2-1 overtime win over Peddie on Friday. "We had 11 players on the field who knew they could win and played like they were going to win. The whole team played with a lot of confidence.
"Last year was a rough season for us and we had a rough start this year. I think it took a while to convince everyone that we could do it. We had a pretty young team last year and they weren’t used to the success we had in the past. Last year was tough, but we’ve really come along this year."
To see the progress the Raiders have made, there is no need to look any further than their matchups with Peddie. Early in the season, Hun dropped a 5-1 decision to the Falcons. Three weeks later, the margin was cut to just 1-0 in a loss at home. Then on Friday, Hun came away with a win thanks to an overtime goal by Katie Kirnan off an assist from Tyler Willey.
With the win, sixth-seeded Hun advanced to play at second-seeded Blair at 2 p.m. on Wednesday. The winner will play in the state final on Sunday against the winner of the other semifinal between Lawrenceville and Newark Academy.
"We had lost to Peddie twice earlier, but the second time was a real close game," Ostermueller said. "So you could see there was improvement. And then we got to play them again less than a week later and we got the win. We’ve been getting better as the season has gone on. Even in some our losses, we were playing better and the games were close."
The win on Friday was only the fifth of the season for the Raiders, who took a 5-9-1 record into Monday’s scheduled game with Montgomery. But their last three losses have come by just one goal.
"We’ve played a lot of close games," Ostermueller said. "Steinert, PDS, Hightstown, they were all one-goal losses. We have a lot of younger players. Our leading scorer (Willey) is a sophomore. We’ve been moving a lot of people around to different spots and getting everybody into the right positions. It has really worked out for us."
Willey had scored with eight minutes left to tie the score and force overtime. The Raiders played the last minute of regulation as well as overtime one player down after a yellow card, but got the win when Willey found Kirnan for the winning goal.
Now, Hun gets a shot to see how much progress it has made since a 2-0 loss to Blair in mid-October.
"It was 2-0 the first time we played them," Ostermueller said. "They scored a goal in the first minute. We had a long ride up there and hadn’t had much time to get ready. After that first goal we played them pretty even. This time we’ve got it all planned out to get up there with plenty of time."
And this time, Blair may wind up seeing a different Hun team than the one that it played the first time around.