Late goal earns win over Hun
By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
Angela Gallagher didn’t miss her second chance to be a hero for the Stuart Country Day School field hockey team.
The Stuart senior missed a stroke, but more than made up for it when she provided the only goal of the game with 12 seconds left for a 1-0 Tartans win over Hun in the Mercer County Tournament first round Friday.
”I just wanted to keep it exciting,” Gallagher joked. “I knew our team had it in them. I think we wanted it more and we were more confident in ourselves.”
Eighth-seeded Hun and ninth-seeded Stuart had tied earlier in the season, and the teams looked headed for overtime again even though the Tartans had several scoring chances.
”We controlled a lot of the game, but just couldn’t finalize,” said Stuart head coach Julie Martelli after her team improved to 4-5-1. “We shot and shot and shot. They put everyone behind the ball and their goalkeeper is outstanding. She made some saves, high, low, she was all over the place. We got 12 corners. Finally with 12 seconds left, we got the ball in the cage. They played probably the best they have all year. It was great to see them play at that level.”
Said Gallagher: “It was frustrating because we were dominating the whole game. Especially on the corners, we felt we should have scored on most of them. We didn’t let that wear us down. We just knew we had to get it in eventually.”
Gallagher did so after Ani Hallowell helped to work the ball up the field to give the Tartans a final shot. The win propels the Tartans to top-seeded Hopewell Valley today for a quarterfinal game.
”We really have nothing to lose going into this game,” Gallagher said. “We played them earlier in the season and we lost to them. Coming off this win, we have a lot of confidence and it’ll be a good game.”
In other MCT quarterfinals, second-seeded West Windsor-Plainsboro North will host seventh-seeded Hightstown. The Knights topped Steinert, 6-0, as Devin Brakel scored two goals and had two assists and Jeanine Lennon added two goals. Hightstown knocked off 10th-seeded WW-P South, 4-1, despite a goal from the Pirates’ Cassie Perez. Sixth-seeded Princeton High will play at third-seeded Lawrenceville. The Little Tigers got by 11th-seeded Princeton Day School, 2-1, on Sydney Watts’ game-winner. Watts also had an assist on Emilia Lopez-Ona’s goal, while Andrea Jenkins scored PDS’ goal off a feed from Jenna Fritz.
In the Somerset County Tournament semifinals, third-seeded Bernards defeated second-seeded Montgomery High, 2-1. Tori Rudo scored the lone goal for the Cougars, who fell to 12-3-1 with the loss.
Gallagher, a Montgomery resident, is hoping to keep the Tartans’ run going at the biggest time of the year. Stuart will play Hopewell today in the MCT, then host Pennington on Wednesday in the first round of the Prep B state tournament.
”This is really exciting time and a pretty tense time,” Gallagher said. “I think our team is really strong together. I think we really support each other well. Hopefully that’ll get us through. We don’t have any real drama on the team and hopefully the seniors will help. Hopefully our unity and will to win will get us through.
”We’ve really been relying a lot on the senior leadership because we have a lot of younger players. The younger players are looking up to us and playing for us. They know it could be our last game.”
The Tartans’ leadership gets a lot of the credit for their win Friday. They buckled down, particularly on defense, to help Margo Schmiederer post a shutout in goal.
”We were tested,” Martelli said. “Our defense came up with some great plays. They were probably the most steady and confident I’ve ever seen them play before. We had great passing in our midfield. They just got it. They were connecting with each other. They were connecting with the forwards. When they did have some scary runs, our defense came up big.
”Everyone, collectively as a team, played their best game. That’s why we were able to win. Hun is a good team.”
And with the game on the line, it was a senior, Angela Gallagher, that came through with the biggest goal of her career. It’s one that extended her final MCT another game to today.
”She’s a forward,” Martelli said. “She’s been on the left, on the right. She’s been great for us. She really sparks our forward line. She’s up there with the leading scorers. She played out of her mind on Friday, so she deserved it.”