By Mia Kamen and Jaclyn Sasson
Sports Reporters
The Newton South varsity field hockey team had a difficult week, going 0-3 in a tough series of games.
The Lions opened the week on Monday against Dual County League rival Acton-Boxborough, the number one ranked team in the state.
Senior captain Kerry Yang acknowledged before the game that Acton-Boxborough would be a difficult opponent.
“Acton-Boxborough will be a very challenging competitor,” she said. “They’re so well coached and have a lot of experience.”
In the first half of this intense game, Acton-Boxborough was able to score six goals, keeping the ball on the Lions’ side of the field for the majority of the game.
Although South’s offense was able to bring the ball up the field a few times during the game, the Colonials’ strong hitting defense was continuously able to get the ball back and start their offensive attack again.
Despite the tough loss, senior captain Lauren Sasson admitted that the Lions saw improvement as the game progressed.
“The second half was a lot better than the first half because [we] communicated much better on defense and mids were more aggressive,” she said.
In the last 30 minutes of the game, Acton-Boxborough was able to get five corner shots, but luckily, only managed to score twice with senior goalie Megan Connors in the net. Though South fought hard, Acton-Boxborough walked away with the 8-0 win.
The following day the Lions traveled to Framingham to play the Flyers in an out of conference game. Like Newton South, Framingham does not have a youth league that introduces field hockey to youth athletes, so both teams have a vast majority of players who learned the sport when they got to high school. As a result, the team expected a relatively balanced game.
“This should be a pretty even game skill-wise,” Sasson said. “Like our team, Framingham does not have a feeder program, so we have all been playing field hockey for around the same amount of time.”
The game began evenly, with both teams passing the ball into the opposing sides and taking shots on net. However, in the final four minutes of the first half, the Flyers took the lead on two quick goals, which proved to be the difference in the game.
As the second half of the game began, tensions rose between the Lions and the Flyers. Senior Chace Khan, the only male on the Newton South team, was put in, and Framingham was surprised to see a male competitor on the opposing team.
A few minutes in the game, a referee called out Khan for his equipment and forced the senior to wear a skirt for the remainder of the game to match his teammates as opposed to his usual gym shorts.
The Lions finally managed to get on the scoreboard when junior Sophie Szymanski rushed the ball down the field skillfully, avoiding the Flyers’ defenses, and passed to fellow junior Hannah Aghassi, who slammed the ball into the goal with only twenty seconds remaining in the game.
The close game left the Lions’ Saturday matchup against Dual County League rival Westford Academy with a bit more hope.
Throughout the game, South was able to keep the ball up on Westford’s side of the field. Khan led the charge as he consistently pushed the ball upfield.
Senior Hannah Nesson stressed the importance of setting the pace of the game with a strong offense.
“We really need to rush to get on our opponents, otherwise they have the full field open sign nobody covering them,” Nesson said.
South and Westford’s midfield went back and forth to get the ball to the opposing sides of the field. When Westford managed to get shots on net, senior goalie Emily Diamond was ready to kick the shots out.
In the second half, Westford Academy was able to strike with a goal to go ahead 1-0. They added a second goal to make the score 2-0 with 40 seconds remaining in the game.
The game ended in a penalty on South which called for a stroke, where one of Westford’s forwards faced off one on one with Diamond.
Westford’s forward took her shot, but Diamond was able to stop the ball, and the game ended in a 2-0 win for Westford.
Despite the losses, South improved throughout the week as the margin of defeat greatly decreased since the loss to Acton-Boxborough.
“I think over the past week we have really improved communication throughout our own positions, but what we need to work on is communicating with everyone on the team while on the field,” junior Lexi Nelson said.
The Lions are anticipating their matchups against Brookline on Monday and Waltham on Thursday, hoping to get a pair of wins.
“It’s going to be a hot day again, but we need to toughen up and persevere so we can beat Brookline,” Yang said.
