Taylor’s hat trick paces Robbinsville victory
BY: Sean Moylan Sports Writer
The players on the New Egypt High girls’ varsity field hockey team are so naturally competitive it usually doesn’t take a full-blown Knute Rockne speech to get them fired up for most games.
In fact, the Warriors’ legendary head coach Patti Nicholson had to say just one simple sentence to get her girls ready for Monday’s game versus Holy Cross.
“The words ‘we have never beaten them in our history was all it took’,” said Nicholson, whose New Egypt Warriors went out and clobbered the Holy Cross Lancers, 4-0, at New Egypt.
Keep in mind that the Lancers are coming off a year where they won a Group I Central New Jersey championship and they dominated many of their games. Furthermore, they’re expected to be very good this year as well. But the Warriors, who had actually played the Lancers to a tie before Monday’s contest, jumped on them early and never stopped scoring until victory was one-hundred percent secured.
Coming into the season, Nicholson was looking for some of her sophomores to have breakthrough seasons. And in the first half of the Holy Cross contest, 10th grader Gianna Andruela broke through the Holy Cross midfield and defense to score an unassisted goal to give New Egypt a 1-0 advantage.
“It was just a beautiful stick hit,” said Nicholson of Andruela’s game-winning tally.
New Egypt was coming with six or seven different looks on its corners, which gave the Holy Cross defenders all sorts of problems. In fact, Stephanie Partyka, a senior defender with a knack for scoring on penalty corners, was able to score twice in the first half. On each of Partyka’s goals, sophomore midfielder Karly Ossowski worked the ball to senior midfielder Lauren Siegelski, who, in turn, quickly delivered it to Partyka for a fast score.
“Stephanie Partyka, our left back, is great on corners and she was fabulous today (Monday), on offense and defense, and Kaci Hopkins played great defense. Kaci also has a beautiful shot, but she’s still looking for her first goal of the season,” noted Nicholson.
In the second half, sophomore forward Kayla Soles fired in an unassisted rocket to complete the scoring. The chemistry that Nicholson hoped would develop between her seniors and sophomores is coming along very nicely.
“If the sophomores continue to improve and the seniors play like seniors, we’ll compete in every game,” added Nicholson, who does have a very special 11th grader in goalkeeper Kaite Francis. “Katie Francis had 12 saves and she played great in goal today (Monday)!”
Meanwhile Holy Cross’ keeper (Purden) made 16 saves to keep the contest as close as it was.
New Egypt opened the season with a 2-1 road win over Burlington City in the rain last Friday.
“Burlington City was very fast and we were less than at our best,” noted Nicholson.
In the first half Partyka scored on a corner, which was aided by passes by sophomore Emily Bausher and Siegelski. Burlington City scored late in the second half, but Siegelski, assisted by Ossowski, answered with a quick goal to restore order for the Warriors.
“They (Burlington City) only had two shots and they made one of those shots,” said Nicholson, whose team did what it needed to do in a heavy rain to earn the victory. “But Burlington City played really well.”
Nicholson doesn’t care who her team plays. She just wants her team to play a certain way. The Warriors played the way Nicholson wanted them to play on Monday and, consequently, they came away with a great win.
New Egypt (2-0) was scheduled to have hosted Maple Shade yesterday (Wednesday). New Egypt is scheduled at Riverside on Friday. Next Wednesday New Egypt is scheduled to host Florence.
RHS
Taking up where she left off last season, Robbinsville High girls’ varsity field hockey star Emilie Taylor posted a hat trick in the Ravens’ 3-1 triumph over the Hightstown Rams in Friday’s opener on the beautiful turf field at Robbinsville.
With 3:03 left in the first half, Taylor converted a Jess Kraemer pass into her first goal of the season to stake the Ravens to a 1-0 lead. The Rams’ Emily Ladd scored with 30 seconds left in the first half to tie game up at 1-1. Nevertheless, with some help from her friends, Taylor was able to take over the game in the second stanza as she scored two more goals, one which was unassisted and one which came on a very good pass by Jackie Sikora.
“Emile (Taylor) is a dynamic player who can create space on and off the ball. The entire forward line (Kaitlin Hill, Sikora, Taylor Mitchell, Taylor and Kraemer) work so well together to create opportunities inside of the circle to give us scoring chances,” said Robbinsville head varsity field hockey coach Naoma Cordi.
Hightstown head coach Julie Reisig is somewhat of an offensive mastermind in both field hockey and girls lacrosse, so for Robbinsville to hold the Rams to a just a single goal, even under adverse weather conditions on Friday, was a major accomplishment.
“Friday was a tough situation to play in because of the rain. I give a lot of credit to Hightstown and Robbinsville Varsity and JV girls to come out and play through the situation that Mother Nature gave us. Julie (Reisig) and I are friends and coach together for Futures U16 and Garden State Games and its always a friendly competition when our teams get to meet. Hightstown is a quality team which gave us a great game that was 1-1 at the half,” said Cordi, who is an excellent field hockey coach herself.
Because Taylor scored 32 goals as a junior to lead the entire CVC in scoring last season, there is a tendency to sometimes overlook the Ravens’ great midfielders and defenders. Nonetheless, they contribute as much as anyone to most of Robbinsville’s wins. And senior Christy Wham, for one, is almost always in the middle of all the action.
“Wham is playing in the midfield and is a major asset on offense, defense and transition. With her in the midfield are Ashley DeAngelis (a junior) and Kate Connolly (a senior). Kate is a major contributor in our game and never gives up. Ashley DeAngelis has moved from defense, where she played last year, to midfield and is fitting in well!,” noted Cordi, whose team picked Connolly, Sikora, Taylor and Wham as team captains.
Robbinsville had 10 penalty corners to just two by Hightstown. Robbinsville held Hightstown to just five shots on goal while shooting nine on goal itself. Robbinsville goal keeper Kellye Statz recorded four saves while Hightstown goalie Kristen Schwacha made six stops in the contest.
Friday’s game versus Hightstown was just the start of a tough stretch of games for the Ravens, who were scheduled to have taken on a powerful West Windsor-Plainsboro South on the road this past Tuesday. Robbinsville was scheduled to have hosted a very strong Northern Burlington team yesterday (Wednesday). And on Friday night Robbinsville is scheduled to play Steinert at Mercer County Community College. Robbinsville is scheduled to play an always strong Stuart Country Day School on the road next Monday. And next Tuesday, Robbinsville is scheduled to play Notre Dame at MCCC.

