Bruvik leads Stuart field hockey to MCT title
By: Justin Feil
Kelly Bruvik never let up during Stuart Country Day’s regular-season field hockey games, but she admits there’s a different push come tournament time.
"I think over the season, because we were undefeated, we took games seriously," Bruvik said, "but we were waiting for this."
Bruvik certainly appears to have saved some energy for the Mercer County and Prep A state tournaments, and she had to with a week like the Tartans’ last week.
The junior attack opened the Mercer County Tournament with a goal and two assists in a 3-0 Tartans’ win over No. 15 Steinert last Monday. The next day in the rain, Bruvik tallied one goal and three assists in a 4-0 win over No. 7 Hun in the MCT quarterfinals. After one day recovery, Bruvik opened the scoring 59 seconds into a 3-0 win over No. 3 West Windsor-Plainsboro North last Thursday.
Friday, in the Prep A state opener, Bruvik scored two goals and assisted on a third in a 3-0 win over Morristown-Beard. She capped her six days with two breakaway goals in a 2-1 win over Allentown for the Tartans’ first outright MCT championship ever.
Kelly Bruvik is the Princeton Packet Athlete of the Week.
"I think she’s a gamer," said Missy Bruvik, Kelly’s mother and the Tartan’s longtime head coach. "She will certainly give everything she’s got. She understands what’s on the line. In the big games, she understands and wants to finish and wants to do whatever she can to help the team win. She likes the pressure. You want kids who want to have the ball on their stick in these situations."
Kelly certainly fits the bill. A starter since she was a wide-eyed freshman, Kelly has developed into confident finisher for the Tartans. It was the difference last week as Stuart beat Allentown for the first time in three tries and Bruvik’s goals were also a first for the Tartans, who were shut out in each of the previous two MCT finals. The goals were a sign of the much-improved offense.
"I think it’s the experience and we’re so much faster," Kelly said. "Last year we had Taylor (Blazewski). Megan (Fitzpatrick) is playing right wing just as well now. Having Jackie (Gaudioso Radvany) inside with me, it’s nice. We feed off each other well. We both have confidence to look up and have confidence to get it back. Most of our goals have been breakaway goals.
"Our attack, we really work off the through ball. Defensively, they try to trap you on the sideline. They gave us Megan all day. They couldn’t trap us. I think they underestimated us. They completely ran over PDS."
Bruvik and the Tartans were determined not to allow Allentown to do the same thing to them. She scored a goal in each half for a 2-0 lead. Stuart surrendered a goal with 1:10 left but still had an edge thanks to Bruvik.
"Our talk right before we went on the field was, we have to score," Kelly said. "In the games when we had played not as good games, like Steinert, we didn’t score in the first half. We’ve been much more of a second-half team this year. We had gone down with Allentown every year. We wanted to get out to a lead with a score and make them come back. That’s so key. Once you get down, it’s hard to come back."
Stuart last shared the county championship in 1995. With the win over Mo-Beard on Friday preceding Saturday’s county win, the Tartans stayed unbeaten and stayed on track for the county and the prep, which is combined with Prep A and B this year, titles.
"It’s important," Kelly said. "We’re underestimated because we’re a small Prep B school. We’re playing a big public school (for the county title). We didn’t need to prove anything, but it’s like when we play Prep A and Prep B combined, it shows we can beat a bigger group. We want to play the toughest competition we can."
For anyone in the area, that’s Allentown in the county. Bruvik’s standout scoring she had a hand in all but two of the Tartans’ 15 goals in the five games last week made sure they’d finally ascend to the top of the county.
"Good players rise to the occasion," Missy Bruvik said. "Every game last week was a matter of urgency to move on. You hope the kids that have all that experience behind them and have felt that pressure and want to get back, take those steps. I thought she showed great leadership as a junior, and showed what it takes to get it done. She created opportunities for everyone else. Her timing was on. A lot of things have to happen at once for that.
"Those are her two biggest assets, her scoring and passing," she added. "She has great field sense. She knows when to give the ball up. She knows when to finish. If someone is in better position, she’ll give it up. She knows where teammates are. And her speed puts her and her teammates in good position."
The Tartans certainly ended last week in good position with their first outright county title and a berth in the state semifinals. A leader on the offensive attack, Kelly Bruvik had a lot to do with both accomplishments.

