Varsity Field Hockey: Middletown Sets Focus on Themselves Against Eagles

By Ben Spector
Winning After MidKnight

 

The Middletown High School Knights Field Hockey team has learned not to base the feel for how their season will go off of the first few games that we play. Besides the fact that very few teams play at their best in the first few games it doesn’t help the Knights that the toughest competition they play all come in the first three games of the season.

Or as one Middletown parent said after the Knights 2-0 loss to Westminster on September 6^th, “If we played them at the end of the year it would be a different story.”

The Knights, because of this, have had to focus not so much on the results of the games that they play in early in the season but how they do themselves in those early games.

If they were to focus on the results only than it would be easy for the Knights to tear themselves down as Middletown is going up against some of the best competition in the state and are playing in games that any team in the state would have a tough time winning.

In turn, the Knights have forced themselves not to look at the scoreboard for answers on how they played but analyze their actual performance on a game-to-game basis and determine if they’ve played up to the level they need to be playing at.

This “self-help” method of evaluating their play was crucial after the Owls and the Knights hope that the evaluations of themselves and the final result will come together when the Knights take on the Francis Scott Key High School Eagles on Thursday September 8^th.

After the Owls game against Westminster the Knights had a lot to be proud of even if the scoreboard was leaning against them. The Knights, after a first half in which Westminster pressured Middletown and had the Knights trapped in their own defensive half for most of the half, came back in the second half and put offensive pressure on the Owls.

Middletown would hold much more of the possession as well in the second half making it much more even in regards to the time that the teams were setting up their offense. The Knights had two chances to pocket goals in the second half but two scrambles in front of the net along with a couple of corners didn’t provide the Knights the results that would’ve given them the win.

Those positives are what the Knights will carry with them into their contest with the Eagles as Middletown searches for a win but also to consistently improve on how they had played in the game before.

It will be a challenge as the Knights will go up against an FSK team that has struggled in the regular season in previous years but proved during last year’s playoff run that they could hang with the big dogs in Carroll County by taking a Manchester Valley team that was considered one of the best in the state to penalty strokes in the playoffs.

The Eagles (2-0) are led by third year coach Lori Knights and have two seniors leading the charge as senior midfielder Korey Fine and senior forward Heather Rohwein are the two starts for the Eagles and have shown it in their play so far this season.

In the Eagles’ two contests this season there has not been much debate about who the better team was as FSK sliced open Catoctin to a 5-0 tune with two goals from Rohwein leading the way. The season opening win was even more of a blowout as the Eagles took down Governor Thomas Johnson by a 10-spot, with the Eagles recording eight different goal scorers.

As the results show, Middletown will have their work cut out for them but if the Knights can get offensive pressure on FSK, than the Knights might be able to look to the scoreboard for validation of how much they were improving.