By Wayne Witkowski
New Egypt High School’s field hockey team may be 5-12 but at closer look, its season wound down with a flourish with three straight shutout victories — boding well for next season’s returning players. Only four players will graduate.
“It’s been great to see it turning around,” first-year head coach and former player Lisa Malloy said.
The Warriors earned a berth in the state tournament Oct. 24 at Arthur L. Johnson High School, which was unexpected just two weeks before winning three straight. Five different players scored for Johnson (14-3-1) in its 5-0 victory — its 10th shutout — that ended New Egypt’s season.
Leading up to that game, the Warriors picked up two tune-up games in a 2-1 loss in overtime to West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South Oct. 20 and a 6-0 loss to highly regarded Delran High School, which raced to a 3-0 lead by halftime. Senior midfielder Katie Marshall tied the game for New Egypt with six minutes left before West Windsor-Plainsboro South won it with three minutes left in overtime.
Those games came after New Egypt scored 10 unanswered goals in three games.
“It’s exciting to see us getting better as everything has been coming together,” Malloy said. “The kids have a never-give-up attitude. We beat Maple Shade, which was 7-1 at the time, so I don’t discount the chance for us to come back. We need to focus on the offseason and next preseason. Hopefully this will carry over. They have the determination but at times were overmatched with skills. We turned it around with our aggressiveness. We feel there are some close losses (five by one goal) that should have been in our favor. ”
New Egypt beat Maple Shade High School, 2-1, in late-September after suffering a 1-0 loss early in the season.
“We started to finish with the ball better,” senior midfielder Meghan Smith said. “This [streak] has been so rewarding. We came a long way working so hard. Little things have made a huge difference. It’s the best feeling possible.”
What hurt early in the season was when junior captain Payton Magnotta was sidelined from the first game with a knee injury. The Warriors started the season 0-7 — a losing streak snapped by a 1-0 victory over Palmyra High School.
But the team made a statement for the future with its late-season victories over Bordentown Regional High School, 1-0, Oct. 12; Burlington County Institute of Technology-Medford (BCIT), 2-0, Oct. 14; and Burlington City High School, 7-0, Oct. 17.
Malloy said the seven goals scored in the last game changed the mentality of her team.
“This really has been the light at the end of the tunnel,” Malloy said. “It’s been a hard season emotionally — hard to instill a winning attitude — but things have just clicked with their ability to work through the season and now it’s paying off. There hasn’t been one practice where the players haven’t worked hard for the entire two hours.”
Junior Chloe Lewis was unflappable in goal in that stretch in her first year on the team.
“She’s been mentally tough to push the team and is the most vocal goalie I’ve ever heard,” Malloy said, citing 100 saves made by Lewis going into the end of the regular season. “She’s been really committed, even though softball is her No. 1 sport.”
“I think we definitely came together as a team and clicked,” Lewis of her shutout streak. “We got our shots down, and we’ve had a strong defense that communicates where we are and where the ball should be going.”
Junior Katie Poch, who scored the deciding goal against Bordentown, kept things steady in the midfield in getting the ball up to freshmen Hannah Lombardo on left wing and Sarah Weber at center forward, as well as sophomore Jessica Shoblock at left forward.
Lombardo and Marshall fired in goals against BCIT, while senior Angela Horner scored her first three goals of the season against Burlington City. Lombardo, Poch, Weber and Smith scored the others.
“Meghan Smith has played field hockey for four years but is committed playing softball and still is the heart and soul of this team,” Malloy said of the right midfielder. “She’s all over the field and is our most important player, distributing the ball from midfield and getting back on defense. She’s a do-it-all player. And having her as a leader is great. That has to come from within.”
“We lost four seniors coming into this season, so I know [leadership] was my job now,” Smith said. “At first, playing all over the field was difficult. I wasn’t used to it. But my coach has shown me ways to save energy that helped a lot.”
Lombardo and Poch share the team lead in goals scored with five each.
“The defense took a while to get the transition down to attack,” Malloy said.
New Egypt had scored nine goals before that late-season run.