High School Field Hockey
STATE TOURNAMENT
Oct. 23, 2006
KCD upsets Assumption in semis again
By NATHAN CHAMBERS
BeyondTheDerby.com
Many of the faces have changed in the two years since the Kentucky Country Day field hockey team dethroned defending champion Assumption 2-1 in the 2004 state semifinals.
When the Bearcats returned to the University of Louisville’s Trager Stadium for the rematch on Monday night, few of the players who were involved in that state championship run were still on the team. And Katie Deskins, the coach who guided them to that title, was sitting next to her new boss, Sacred Heart coach Liz Lewis, in the pressbox, studying the action on the field below.
But the circumstances and the outcome were eerily familiar. In fact, KCD’s few holdovers suddenly are feeling a strong sense of “déjà vu.”
The heretofore underachieving Bearcats beat the defending state champions once again, thoroughly outplaying the Rockets for a 2-1 win.
And should Sacred Heart beat Manual in the other semifinal on Tuesday, the Valkyries will put a perfect record on the line against KCD in the final on Thursday - just as they did two years ago, and lost.
Could it happen - again?
“We’ll have to see on Thursday night,” KCD’s Christina Provost said.
Provost’s goal with 10:26 left made it possible. Standing off to the left of the cage, she took a pass from Kelly Beam and slapped a shot past Assumption goalkeeper Celia Johns for a 2-1 lead.
“Kelly set it up perfectly for me,” Provost said, “and I just nailed it.”
The Bearcats held Assumption without a shot for the rest of the game to seal the victory. They’ll play the Sacred Heart-Manual winner at Trager Stadium at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, when second-year coach Amy Charasika will make her first appearance in a state final.
“It’s very different for me, and I'm very excited,” she said. “I couldn’t be more proud of these girls. This is the best team I’ve ever coached.”
Not that it has always looked like it this season. In the quarterfinals on Saturday, for instance, the Bearcats had to go into a second round of penalty strokes to eke out a 1-0 win over Mercy.
“I know it sounds simple, but we have an extremely skilled team and just haven’t been showing the team we can be,” Charasika said. “But we knew what it would take to win tonight, and we really played the way we can play.”
Assumption scored its only goal, which was credited to Lauren Noe, in the second minute of the game, and it appeared to come off Noe’s stick first but then hit a KCD player and ricochet past goalkeeper Sarah Anderson.
The Bearcats, who lost to the Rockets 2-1 in overtime on Sept. 29, out-shot them 14-6 and put 11 of those shots on goal.
“They outplayed us. Period,” Assumption coach Debbie Judd said. “We hustled, but they outplayed us. They were in the right places, and they made the right passes.”
One of those passes, from Alex Weber to Christena Burell, tied the score in the fifth minute of the second half. Weber, positioned far to the right of the cage, crossed the ball into the middle to Burell, who one-timed a shot out of the reach of Johns.
Johns, who began the season as Assumption’s primary goalkeeper, has been splitting time with Jennifer McGill since the Huskie Tournament in Oak Park, Ill., in mid-September.
McGill started on Monday and single-handedly maintained Assumption’s 1-0 lead in the first half. She made seven saves, including five in the last three minutes of the half as the Bearcats unleashed a barrage of shots.
“This definitely was her best game,” said Judd, who didn’t hesitate to stick with her plan to play Johns in the second half.
“I’m blessed to have two really good goalies,” she added. “Those goals they scored were just beautiful goals.”