By: Sean Moylan
As great and as fun-filled as the Mercer County Tournament can be, it does have its drawbacks.
For instance, the Robbinsville High field hockey team was hoping to reschedule some of its postponed regular season games in an effort to climb back to .500 and gain some valuable experience against evenly-matched teams. But when the MCT schedule came out, it made it impossible to fit in those contests. It also put the Ravens in the unfavorable position of playing an unbeaten Stuart team in the second round after defeating Ewing, 2-0, in the tournament opener.
Last Tuesday in Princeton, the Ravens fought valiantly but still lost a 5-0 decision to the Stuart Country Day School.
"The quickness of their shots was overpowering," said Robbinsville head coach Judy Goldstein of the Stuart attackers. "Once they got in the circle they took advantage of every little mistake."
Robbinsville did hold Stuart to three goals in the first half and Ravens’ goalie Megan Leach made a total of nine saves in the contest.
Then, on Thursday, Robbinsville had to play another road game versus a double digit win team in West Windsor Plainsboro-South. In that game, Robbinsville played tremendous defense but ended up losing the contest 1-0 in overtime.
"We hung in there for 10 minutes of overtime," said Goldstein, whose team’s 11 shots were one more than West Windsor Plainsboro-South took. Leach posted four saves.
Going in the Ravens liked their match-up in last Friday’s regular season home finale versus Hopewell Valley. However, in the second half fatigue became a factor for Robbinsville, which ended up losing a 3-2 overtime game to a highly-successful playoff-bound Hopewell team.
"To have two sudden victory games in two days just drained us," remarked Goldstein, whose team had a 1-0 lead at the half. Moreover, Robbinsville was playing without two of its better players, Christie Wham and Courtney DeAngelis. Even so, Courtney Stewart and Emilie Taylor both tallied for the Ravens in the game and Courtney DeAngelis assisted on one of the goals. Meanwhile Leach made several good stops on Hopewell’s 15 shots to keep her team ahead for much of the contest.
"Our (7-12-1) record doesn’t show how strong we ended up being," said Goldstein, who was a bit surprised that every team had to play a mandatory third game in the MCT.
Wham, a sophomore defender, Taylor, a sophomore attacker, and Marissa Clark, a junior defender, played so well that they were picked by the coaches as Second-Team All-Stars. Leach, the Ravens’ talented junior goalie, received an honorable mention and was one of the CVC’s most durable goalies.

