Stuart wins to reach state final
By: Justin Feil
It’s hard to beat a good team three times, as the Stuart Country Day field hockey team discovered Wednesday.
It’s harder still to beat a very good team once, as Princeton Day School found out against Stuart. The Tartans, for the third time this season, beat PDS. The 1-0 outcome was the most evenly matched game yet between the two cross-road rivals, and this time it ended the Panthers season and sent Stuart on to the prep state championship.
"They’re good. You can’t have any mistakes against them," said PDS head coach Jill Thomas as her team closed its season with a 13-5-1 record. "We have five looses and three are against them. That’s not too bad a season for ourselves. They’ve been beating up on teams a lot. Two times in a week, they didn’t beat up on us. That’s something to be said for us.
"They’re going to go on, but we had a plan today and we stuck to it. You couldn’t ask for anything more except the outcome to be different."
The Tartans were on their heels in parts of Wednesday’s game, but they never broke against PDS’ pressure. Stuart made stand a late first-half goal by Eleanor Hayes-Larson to improve to 18-0-1 this season.
"We’re a really strong team," said Haley Meagher, who assisted the goal. "PDS is also a great team. PDS has good players and good skills. We played well together and we kept our heads in the game. It was whoever wanted it the most. And we really wanted it.
"We were pumped. We want to practice tomorrow. Our seniors, we didn’t want this to be their last game of the season."
Instead, the finale will come 1 p.m. Sunday when the top-seeded Tartans host No. 2 Lawrenceville for the prep state final. Last year, the Big Red defeated Stuart for the title, and the teams tied each other earlier this year.
Neither of those games holds a particularly fond memory for Meagher, who is a Lawrenceville resident. The loss in the final was hard to take last year, and this year, Meagher’s first as a starter, she missed the majority of the tie when she took a ball to the head and sat out the remainder of the game. Now she gets another chance at Lawrenceville.
"This season has gone by so fast," Meagher said. "I’m sad it’s going to end on Sunday. Hopefully it will be in celebration."
Meagher hopes to play a role in it. She played one of her best games of the year in the prep semifinals Wednesday.
"She’s a sophomore. She probably played the best on attack of anybody today," said Stuart head coach Missy Bruvik. "Haley seemed to be our biggest threat offensively today. She had to go back and mark when the ball when it was on the opposite side of the field. She was always there in transition when we brought the ball up. She was instrumental in winning 50-50 balls for us. I think she did that better than anyone on the field today."
Bruvik has seen plenty of progress from the sophomore in her first year starting. Meagher has enjoyed taking on a bigger role after seeing spot duty last year.
"If we were winning around 4-0, she put me in," Meagher said. "We had such great people out there. I learned a lot from watching them.
"We lost a lot of seniors this year," she added. "Megan Fitzpatrick, who normally would play right wing, moved back to midfield. And I’ve been starting. The team is great. It’s been a lot of fun. I love having Megan behind me and Kate Baker behind her. Kelly (Bruvik) tells me where I should be. We’re all supportive of each other."
Now, together they go for the state title that was about the only thing they missed out on last year. Stuart this season has won the Mercer County Tournament over Allentown after beating PDS in the MCT semifinals, and the Tartans wrapped up sole possession of the Patriot Conference with a win over Ranney on Monday. The state title is all that is left for a perfect season and it against the only team to have equaled the Tartans this year.
"That was a game, the only game we were behind in all year," Missy Bruvik said. "Hopefully we learned from that that we can come back, that we’re capable. We’ll be well rested and we know we have to get to more loose balls and win more 50-50 balls this time. With the pressure we had today, hopefully that will help us.
"Every time we play PDS, it seems like there’s more at stake," she added. "It’s very high intensity. I thought they out-hustled us. I think the defense today handled the pressure beautifully. They needed to come through. Usually offense takes some pressure off. The defense held it together."
PDS certainly did everything it could to slow the Tartans. The Panthers held a slim shot advantage, and had some scoring chances that were turned away.
"We had corners," Thomas said. "I think the other night (in the MCT), people looked at us and said, we packed it in and said that’s all we had. That probably was true. Today, we played as well as we did defensively then and we played well offensively. We had it all. We played a great game."
It was the final one for three PDS seniors who have been contributing since they were freshmen. Katie Briody, Allie Crouse and Nina Crouse will graduate after taking the Panthers to a new level in their careers.
"They had a great year," Thomas said. "We’re going to miss them. You have three who have been there all along. They took everyone along with them.
"And they’re not done. They have a winter season and a spring season to finish out terrific careers. When you get in the state tournament, there are only two endings. One’s a very happy. One’s not so happy."
Meagher was happy to keep things happy for the Tartans. And while Bruvik credited her with a strong semifinal effort, Meagher was quick to downplay her role for the team, even on the winning goal.
"I think it was a nice play," she said. "I had a good touch on the ball and Eleanor had a nice finish. I got a nice pass from Megan Fitzpatrick. She’s a great player. She’s been crossing the ball in every game many, many times. She really helped. Today, I just got a lucky touch."
And she was also part of the Tartans defensive effort that prevented a Panther goal that could have tied it. It was instrumental in helping Stuart keep its dream alive. Stuart, more than many other games this year, was tested at the defensive end.
"Laura (van Jaarsveld) had a good game," Bruvik said. "She came up with some big saves. Jenae (Harrington) is the fly on short corners. She was able to hit some balls and clear them out. Anne (Crawford-Roberts) and Kate Baker were solid. Liz worked very hard to make some clears. She had to play a little lower than normal."
Added Meagher: "The whole offensive line had to drop back and help with playing defense. It was a little more than usual. We had to do it to win."

