The Keene State College Field Hockey team won the Little Eastern Conference championship for the second time in three years.
“Everything comes down to LEC’s,” senior midfielder, Leddy Gallagher, said. “There’s so much pressure on us and it’s nice we finally got what we worked for.”
The Lady Owls cruised against LEC opponents all season, going a perfect 11-0 in conference games. Their last conference win, however, was probably their hardest.
Brian Cantore / Photo Editor: Senior Katlyn Simula attempts to advance the ball during the LEC championship game on Nov. 9.
Although KSC had beaten Plymouth State earlier in the year, their rivals were in no mood to roll over. The game was scoreless at halftime and the Lady Owls would muster just ten shots on goal the entire match. But, that would prove to be enough— they would hold on to win the championship 2-1 on November 9.
“It was a battle, we had a tough game to win the regular season and then we had three difficult games after that to win the whole thing,” head coach, Amy Watson, said.
Watson pointed to the 3-2 semifinals win over the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where they trailed at halftime, as a particularly tough game.
But, the team seemed to have an answer for everyone, relentlessly dominating their schedule to finish with a final record of 21-4.
“We’re a team that, we can’t take any games lightly, we have to treat every game like it’s going to be our last,” senior Julia Forgione said. “And our coach has always said not to get ahead of ourselves.”
The team went on to lose in the second round of the NCAA regional tournament to Skidmore College, but that doesn’t diminish their accomplishments. After winning the LEC two years ago, last year KSC lost in the championship game to U-Mass Dartmouth. It was a game Gallagher described as “a slap in the face,” and something no one on the team wanted to see repeated.
As one of the six seniors of the Lady Owls, Gallagher said it meant a lot to go out on a positive note for her last year.
“We won my sophomore year and it was cool and all, but I didn’t realize what it meant to the seniors that year,” Gallagher said. “To be able to say in your last year playing field hockey that you’re champions, is awesome.”
Still, Watson noted that the title was never a guarantee.
“I don’t know if we expected to win, we knew it was going to be a tough tournament,” Watson said. “The most important thing for us was being able to get the number one seed, that definitely helped.”
Brian Cantore / Photo Editor: Freshman Brittney Cardente outruns a Plymouth State defender in the LEC championship game.
Forgione agreed that things were very much in doubt heading into the season. She said last year was a “rebuilding year” and that there were questions about how successful they would be this season.
“I think we developed chemistry and we really clicked, it was awesome,” Forgione said.
Watson, who said she gave the team a day to celebrate before getting them back to work, said she was proud of her team.
“[Winning the championship] was awesome, that was one of our goals coming into the year,” Watson said.
“We wanted to win the one seed then be conference champions.”
Mission accomplished.
Zach Winn can be contacted at zwinn@keene-equinox.com