Junior Varsity Field Hockey: Middletown Looks to Develop Against Eagles

By Ben Spector
Winning After MidKnight

                         

The Middletown High School Knights Junior Varsity Field Hockey team is learning on the fly. There is simply no other way to describe this team which is a mix of field hockey players who have been playing the game for some time and understand its’ ins and outs combined with a mix of players who had never played field hockey before with various differences in motivation for the reason why they joined the team.

All of this has forced the Knights to borrow an old firefighters’ adage in trying to, “adapt, improvise, and overcome” as they try to meld together a team that is in two different spots.

The melding process of these two separate units will continue on Thursday September 8^th as the Knights take on the Francis Scott Key Eagles from Union Bridge, Maryland at 5:15 p.m.

There are a list of obvious disadvantages that the Knights face due to this recent melding of the team but there are also some advantages to it that most people wouldn’t pick up on.

The disadvantages are obvious. The athletes on the team haven’t had chances to develop chemistry because it has been weeks not months or years that the Knights have been playing together so they have not had the time to develop the chemistry that other teams have already developed.

There’s also the issue of the Knights not having the time to develop where the athletes on the team would play or where they fit best position wise because some of the players on the team do not have the slightest idea of where their best position on the field hockey field is.

The most obvious issue is how to train the players, as the newcomers will need help with the basic field hockey skills. On the other hand, too much focus on the basic skills would leave the more experienced player without any chances to develop which is something the Knights don’t want to happen.

The benefits do fly under the radar but there are some as the younger players haven’t had a chance to develop any bad habits and are able to get a field hockey education from scratch the right way.

Whatever the answer, Middletown head coach Christina Moats has found some sort of a solution as the Knights managed to hang with some tough competition in their first game in the form of the Westminster Owls and will look to do the same against the Eagles.

Today’s game will provide the chance for the Knights to develop a little bit more as they’ll also shoot for their first win of the season. And any development with these Knights’ is a positive step forward.