Team wins division, makes states and improves to 12-1—2
By: Sean Moylan Sports Writer
With the Freedom Division and a state tournament berth already locked up, the New Egypt High girls’ varsity field hockey team was basically playing for pride and to improve its playoff seeding this past week.
However, the Warriors don’t need any extra motivation to win games — winning is in their blood. And these kids want to win every time they step on a field hockey field regardless of the circumstances.
New Egypt had three road tough games on its schedule this past week, but it did not bow to the pressure in the slightest.
Patti Nicholson’s talented club transformed into the Road Warriors and defeated Palmyra, 2-1, on October 15, and won a 2-1 decision at Bordentown last Friday before tying an excellent Moorestown team, ranked sixth in the state, 2-2 this past Monday.
In the game against the Quakers, New Egypt’s Emily Bausher scored the equalizer with no time remaining in regulation. Although, New Egypt, which is also ranked in the Top 20 in the state, was playing one of the state’s best field hockey squads, Nicholson saw some room for improvement.
“It was not a particularly good game on our part. We were slow to the ball and it was 2-0 Moorestown at the half,” noted Nicholson, whose team was originally scheduled to play Pemberton on Monday. “But you have to look at the positives. We were behind and we never gave up.”
After the intermission, Brandi Smith sparked the Warriors’ attack with a goal which trimmed the Quakers’ lead to just one. Then neither team scored until the final tick of the clock when Bausher worked her magic. New Egypt would have never even been in a position to tie had it not been for the extraordinary play of its goalie Katie Francis, who made several terrific saves in regulation and in the overtime session.
“Katie Francis was brilliant and had 23 saves today,” added Nicholson. “She came up real big.”
Missing two of its better players, New Egypt still managed to post a quality two-goal win over Bordentown last Friday.
“I didn’t have two of my starters, Kayla Soles and Laura Sandford,” said Nicholson, whose talented star players were away on a softball trip.
Even so, New Egypt did have Francis, who made nine saves to post her ninth shutout of the season. Lindsay Mann, a semi-finalist in the National Merit Scholarship Program, and Bausher, both used their superior hand-eye coordination to fire in first-half rocket goals for the victors. Smith and Karly Ossowski each chipped in with an assist.
“We played much better versus Bordentown than we did against Palmyra,” Nicholson said.
Against Palmyra, New Egypt played a solid first half as Smith and Ossowski scored goals and Soles and Mann each posted an assist. However, the Warriors did surrender a second-half goal to a fairly decent Panther squad which was struggling just to stay in playoff contention at the time. New Egypt had a slight 6 to 5 edge in shots on goal. Francis made four saves in the contest.
“We just got lazy and we weren’t as sharp that game,” said Nicholson who was very happy to clinch another Freedom Division title with a win over Florence two weeks ago. “It was good to win the title for the seventh year in a row.”
Holy Cross was supposed to have given New Egypt a good fight for the conference crown this season. But the Warriors simply dominated most of their league games and were never really challenged. These New Egypt kids just love winning and that’s always a very good attribute for athletes to have.
New Egypt (12-1-2) was scheduled to have played a game at Rancocas Valley yesterday (Wednesday). New Egypt is scheduled to host Collingswood next Monday and Lacey next Tuesday.

