Varsity Field Hockey fell to Presentation High School 6-0 on Wednesday, Sept. 17. In the first quarter, PHS scored two points, but the Matadors were able to keep the score stagnant until the third quarter, where PHS scored four more points, giving them an insurmountable lead. For nearly two quarters, the Matadors started out strong with few fouls and no short corners, a penalty play for the defending team when fouls are committed inside the shooting circle. The Matadors came close to scoring goals, but were ultimately unable to catch up.
Senior and center defense Vaishnavi Rajesh believes the team’s performance was solid, but the result wasn’t what they had expected. She notes that it took time for the team’s energy to ramp up, causing them to lose valuable time while warming up to the game. However, Rajesh commends the team for their plays at the end of the game, which were intense and more aggressive than in the previous quarters.
“In the beginning of the game, we were not really in the game mood, but then as the game went on, we started to improve,” Rajesh said. “For example, in today’s games, they scored in the first five minutes, but then in the second quarter, they didn’t score.”
Junior and forward lineup Ruhee Bhatnagar reflects on where the team might be losing focus, as she believes that the lack of scoring was not associated with the play itself but rather the adrenaline rush that clouded the team’s judgment at the last minute.
“I think we get excited and then we don’t really think about what we’re doing,” Bhatnagar said. “We just try to dump the ball anywhere we can, which is really useless, because then they just send it right back to our side.”
To combat this sudden lapse in focus, Bhatnagar emphasizes the importance of improving overall stick skills and cutting to the ball, a strategy usually executed just before receiving a pass to distract players by creating a sudden space on the field, either by changing speed or direction. Rajesh shares a similar sentiment and believes the team could improve on getting to the ball faster and marking, used as a defensive play to “mark” a player from the opposite team as the player’s focus during defensive strategies or penalty plays.
“We could have improved on communication, and just talking to our players to know where the ball is going,” Bhatnagar said.
Looking ahead, the Matadors plan to focus on more offensive strategies, communication and cohesive plays. Both Bhatnagar and Rajesh note that despite practicing hard, their scores don’t reflect their efforts, and they hope to be more consistent in future games.
“The stuff that we’ve been working on in practice, we did show on the field,” Bhatnagar said. “I think as we were getting more tired and sloppy, some of our passes were not going where they had to go.”
