Cheers of good luck echoes into the hallways on Tuesday of October 14^th as the West Deptford freshmen girls’ field hockey got their equipment on for their game at West Deptford High. It was West Deptford vs Burlington and was a close game.

            The structure for the game was that they were going to play two twenty-five minute halves with a break in between. There is a total of 11 girls on the West Deptford High School Freshman field hockey team: Hailey Finnochio, Mackenzie Ponto, Jasmine Daly, Maggie Squillace, Katherine Yarusso, Camryn Ley, Lexi Meitzler, Renee Evans, Lindsay Barney, Caterina Gismondi, Bailey Shannon. Their coach is Mrs. Baklycki.

            The way this team had played the game was that they had four people on the front line for offense: Finnochio, Daly, Ponto, and Squillace. They had also had three people for midfield: Yarusso, Ley, and Meitzler. Their defense line which had three people also were Evans, Barney, and Gismondi.  Their goalie was Shannon.

            The West Deptford Freshman Field Hockey team gets ready for a game by clacking their sticks together and yelling GRIT. They have some pregame rituals that they do also. “We do one lap around the field and our warmups and shuttles,” Ley says. “We also work on our corners and do four lines and have three vs two.”

            When playing field hockey, everyone has to play by the rules. Some of them are no pushing, be respectful, have a clean game, do not let the ball hit your feet, do not hit anyone, 3rd party and obstruction. In field hockey they have many of the techniques players could use. “We use pulls, drives, spins and pushes, flat and throughs, air dribble, channel and block tackle,” says Yarusso.

            The girls believe that they were ready for the game. They feel the coaches have taught them well and that they were going to win if they talked to each other, they had progressed well from the beginning of the season.

             In the beginning of the game, everyone was full of energy and ready to play. The ball had gone back and forth on both sides. West Deptford High Varsity and JV was watching and practicing while cheering them on. In the first few minutes West Deptford had gotten a corner and scored.  And then the ball kept on going back and forth against Burlington and WD. West Deptford had gotten another goal. Minutes later, Burlington scored a goal. More corners were being played with West Deptford, and they were missing the shots. They then got another goal and so did Burlington. It was then halftime. The score was 3-2.          

After halftime, Ley had gotten another goal. And then Burlington was trying their hardest to get a goal from W.D’s goalie. The defense was bringing it out. A short time later Ponto had gotten a goal also. Near the end of the game with a few minutes left, Burlington had gotten it into the circle and West Deptford was working really hard to bring it out of the circle. The ball was close to going into the net until West Deptford’s defense had brought it out and got it to Ley who was in midfield. As soon as that happened, the bell rang and the game was over. West Deptford had won 5-2.

  “It was a great game. It was very intense, and if you looked away you would miss something,” says Elaine Gismondi who was working the clock.

The audience had thought the game was great, and they loved watching it. It was a very close game. “The girls did great. They worked very well and were playing very hard,” says Fisher. The parents were impressed also. “They have progressed very well during this season, and this being their last home game, they were very enthusiastic and came out here ready to play,” says parent Michael Gismondi.

With the season coming to a wrap soon, their overall record so far is five wins, one lose and two ties.