Photo courtesy Rafael Quattrucci

Coach Hannah Teicher plots a course-of-action with the entire field hockey team during half time. The team listened with the hopes of growing their lead.

WJ varsity field hockey started their season off strong with a 7-0 steamroll of Poolesville High School. After a first-quarter ended 1-0, WJ went on a hot streak, scoring 6 unanswered before the game was ended prematurely late in the 4th quarter due to inclimate weather.

One key to the dominance of the WJ team in this game was the intensity that the team played with throughout the game.

“Our press really did a great job of shutting down their offense, which allowed us to possess the ball and keep it out of our defensive end. Whenever there was a breakaway opportunity by the other team or they were starting to break through to our defensive end, our defense was right there to shut them down,” coach Hannah Teicher said.

WJ didn’t just dominate due to strong defense, several players had great games to contribute to this victory.

“Definitely the Delp Sisters, Erin Gardiner, Julia Ratner played really well,” junior Fiona Ugarte said.

Another one of the biggest contributions to win was the play of junior Oliva McCloskey.

“The player of the game was Olivia McCloskey. She was hustling up and down the field and had great passes, with some very close attempts on goal! Without her, we would not have had as much possession as we did,” senior Marissa Krantz said.

This dominance was in spite of a year lost to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I think this team has experienced a huge loss in terms of losing a whole season and year to COVID, as well as a lot of experienced seniors who didn’t get the senior season they hoped for. It has made our team culture and dynamic so together and fun and competitive and it’s going to carry us through this season. You might be able to win with talent, but a team that doesn’t have good chemistry on and off the field will lose,” Teicher said.

One common link between successful teams is communication, and with the practice time lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic, communication will play an elevated role in the separation between good teams and great teams.

“Communication is really important for us and will definitely help us win our games. There are a lot of new girls on varsity this year and continuing to build our chemistry and learn how one another plays will allow us to keep winning!” Krantz said.

After a dominant performance, WJ looks to have more exciting games ahead of them.

Upcoming key games include an away game against WJ rival BCC on Friday, September 24 and two home games against Churchill on October 1 and against Blake on October 21.