Leaside and Malvern draw in field hockey opener

[attach]6468[/attach]The Malvern Black Knights had the lead for most of the game, but the Leaside Lancers weren’t about to give up.

In the season opener for both senior girls’ field hockey teams, the 1–1 draw was competitive, with both clubs having ample scoring opportunities.

With a scoreless first half, Malvern took an immediate lead after the break on a rebound that landed on the stick of Malvern forward Faye Stavropoulos.

“Our right inner, Kira [Morrison], she put it [on net], kind of deflected off of someone’s stick and came past me,” said Stavropolous, who was excited to score her first goal of the season. “I ran around and hit it, and it went in.”

The Black Knights almost tasted victory, but at the last second, with a slew of players crowding Malvern’s net, Leaside sank a rebound to tie it up.

“I guess fatigue and pressure set in,” Malvern coach Lesley Gage said. “It’s the first game of the season. We had to defend in our circle for the last five plays of the game. It was pretty tough.”

Leaside played a solid game, mounting plenty of pressure throughout the contest.

[attach]6469[/attach]“I was very happy,” said coach Sara Jones, the school’s head of Phys. Ed. “It was an aggressive. There was a little bit of unnecessary body action. It was a little but rough, but we will work on improving our expertise on both sides [of the field].

“I’m happy we got the goal coming back. We had our chances,” she said. “We had a few more chances, and we were able to capitalize because of all of those corners.”

Stavropolous thought the defence played well, despite the late goal.

“We started to almost freak out, for the fact we were up 1–0 and didn’t want to give up the lead,” she said. “It was a little nerve-racking to start.

Stavropoulos believes the key to further success this season is two-fold. “We can’t freak out,” she said. “[And] we got to take the ball, use teamwork, and put it up the sides, especially the right side. We kept putting it to the left side, and we kept playing around with it, hitting our feet.”

The game featured a number of players playing their first senior field hockey games.

The Black Knights returned five players from last year’s senior team, and many junior players graduated to the main squad. Gage said that she had few practices with the final team, but the Knights played well in their first game.

“They stepped up, they played great,” Gage said.

The afternoon also featured a match between Malvern and Leaside’s Tier-2 field hockey squads, a first-time game for many of the players, many of them grade 9 students. That game ended in a scoreless draw.

“They were really good, showed a lot of promise,” Jones said. “I was happy to see the natural athletic ability that a lot of them have, and they will get better.”