Friday, September 16, 2016

Varsity Field Hockey: Knights Find Bright Win on a Gloomy Day

By Ben Spector
Winning After MidKnight

 

The Middletown High School Knights Varsity Field Hockey team went into halftime of their match against the Tuscarora High School Titans on Thursday September 15th without either team having scored a goal during the first half and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the Knights and the Titans were both starving for goals.

On top of that both teams were looking to breakthrough with their first meaningful goals of the season as Middletown had not scored a goal yet over the first three games they had played and Tuscarora had only scored one goal, with that coming in the late seconds of an 8-1 loss to the Winters Mill High School Falcons.

In the end, it would be the Knights who would quench their drought scoring two second half goals in route to a 2-0 win over the Titans as Middletown registered their first win of the season.

During the first half, both teams seemed content to figure out what the other opponent was doing as both teams played in the midfield for long stretches of the first half with both teams moving the ball methodically up the field as the half moved along.

Even though the first half was played at a slower pace with less offense that didn’t mean that both teams didn’t have the occasional chance to put a ball in the back of the net and break the scoreless tie.

Both the Titans and Knights would have penalty corners in the first half but neither team would be able to convert as a grey, cloudy sky provided an accurate reflection of how the pace of the game was played in the first half.

Unlike the clouds in the sky, the clouds surrounding the game would lift in the second half as both teams would readjust their strategy to a more offensive gameplan as both the Knights and the Titans tried to pick up their first win of the season in a game that was easily winnable.

Middletown (1-3) would be the first team to capitalize on the new pace of play as with about 20 minutes to play in the second half the Knights would poke a goal across the Tuscarora goal, breaking the scoreless tie and giving the Knights their first goal of the season, one which Middletown had been hunting after for a while.

That wouldn’t be it for the Knights as just 14 minutes later Middletown would score again and bump the lead up to 2-0, one in which they would hold on for the remainder of the contest.

For Middletown, the contest was more important than they could have hoped for as the Knights now have the ground level on which they hope to push the upward swing of their season forward.

After battling through the first three games against Carroll County opposition in which the Knights played well but couldn’t get the results to show for it. Now that the Frederick County portion of the schedule has come around for Middletown, the Knights hope they will be able to take the momentum from those early games and put into the rest of their schedule.

It was a big win on a gloomy day for Middletown but the Knights are feeling anything but gloomy after the win.

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