The Bensalem Owls Field Hockey team has a long history of playing in a very difficult division, a very difficult league, in a very competitive state. In fact, through this coach's eyes(and former field hockey dad who lived through it), it's been a long and forgetful path. To my knowledge, Bensalem had neither tied nor beaten another team in this division besides Truman in around twelve years. Twelve very long years. Earlier in this season, we were able to tie Council Rock North on our home field. Tonight we were able to take the lead in the game at North that was stopped early because of lightning. It was not the way that we wanted it to happen. I'm sure it was not what CRN wanted to happen. But we were the lucky recipient of a timely goal and some untimely bad weather.
CRN held most of the possesion in the first half, but we had our chances. Their senior midfielder, Kailyn Smith, was all over the field in the first half. She's a very talented player and we were just trying to contain her as much as possible. Veronica Lennon played such a solid game against her, but she continued to move the ball down the field. At halftime, the coaches were reminding our players about their body positioning and footing as the rain poured down on us all just before the halftime break.
We came out of halftime trying to adapt to the rainy conditions, and early on we got a corner. Just 2:52 seconds into the second half, Abby Cheung inserted a ball up high, through some fortunate bounces the ball found its way past the CRN goalkeeper where Cheung directed it to goal and senior Abby Kazimer backhanded it into the back of the net. Just moments after the goal was scored we had our first lightning strike which put the game on hold. Both teams gathered into the school to wait out the storm. After waiting for some time the game was called due to the lightning. It was the second game that ended this way in the past week for CRN. It was an unfortunate way to have to end that game for CRN, especially on their senior night. I wish their team, and especially their seniors, a good finish to the year and good luck to them all in all of their future endeavors.
For Bensalem, it was special. We've been telling ourselves for the past year and a half, that we're getting there, that we can compete with some of these teams, even if it wasn't for a full game. We would have moments, but they never were sustainable. We're finally getting to see some of that come true, even if it was on a stormy night. It was a great team effort tonight with the forwards getting enough pressure on the CRN defense, the midfield holding it's own against the very talented midfield of CRN, and the defense shutting down the CRN offense when it needed to. Goalkeeper Hailey Fricke was big when she needed to be, and recorded her fourth shutout of the year and lowered her GAA to 1.77. The Outstanding Owl award went to Abby Cheung for her game winning assist and her quality of play tonight and throughout the season.