Tuesday,
September 9, 2014
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
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Sophomore Alyssa Landi scored the first two goals of her varsity career to help Passaic Valley to a 4-0 win its season opener on Monday afternoon in Demarest. |
DEMAREST – It is usually bunched at the top when comes to the best field hockey teams in Passaic County. Wayne Hills, the defending county champion, beat Passaic Valley in last year's tournament final and Pompton Lakes and West Milford are usually in the mix as well. So as this season get underway, Passaic Valley knows where its competition lies and the assets it has to make the 2014 campaign a successful one.
“We have a big group of seniors and a strong midfield core that has been playing together for year and I feel like this is the year that they are going to put it all together,” said Lori Demsey, who has been a member of the PV coaching staff for the past 16 years and is in her second season as the Hornets' head coach. “My senior captains – Alyssa Mele, Beth Hrehovcik and Ronni Wellema – are the core of our midfield, they have experience and they really get things going for us. They make quick outlet passes, they hustle back on defense and they feed the ball into the circle.”
Passaic Valley controlled the midfield in its season opener on Monday afternoon and spent most of the game in the offensive third of the field. By keeping the momentum moving forward and keeping constant pressure on the goal, the Hornets got their first win of the season in their first try, a 4-0 victory on the road at Northern Valley/Demarest.
It was Wellema who got the ball rolling as she threaded a pass to sophomore Alyssa Landi, who, four minutes into her first varsity game, gave Passaic Valley the lead for good.
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Sallie Corrado had a couple of Demarest's best scoring chances. |
“I got the ball and I was dribbling through. When I shot it I didn't think that it was going to go in, I thought the goalie was going to kick it right back out and I was looking for a rebound,” said Landi. “But it got right through her pads and I was kind of in shock. I still pick up the ball [out of the cage] and ran away, but it still didn't feel real.
For the game, Passaic Valley piled up 29 shots on goal. Demarest's defense was overworked, but never quit as it kept the Norsewomen in the game for most of the first half. Goalkeeper Prema Khemlani made five first half saves and PV had a goal disallowed midway through the half when it was ruled that Ashley Lawson's redirect of a Jennifer Sabbak cross went in off her shin rather than her stick.
Alyssa Mele saw her shot from outside the secondary circle trickle just wide to the right, Sabbak's shot off a short corner just missed on the other side and it looked like Demarest might get into halftime trailing by just the single goal, but a mix-up along the sideline gave PV a quick chance at transition.
When two Norsewomen came together up left side line, Wellema pounced on the loose ball, dribbled to get an angle and then fed Landi, who cracked her first touch into the back of the cage for a 2-0 lead. Another steal by Mele set up PV's third goal as she fed Landi in her familiar spot in the middle then kept the ball moving to the far post for Charlotte Cathcart, who knocked it home to give the Hornets a 3-0 lead at the break. Mele capped the scoring by finding her way through traffic to make it 4-0 early in half No. 2.
“This was a good way to kick off our season. We lost a lot of good seniors from last year and we have a really young team, but the young players are good,” said Mele. “You could see it from our first scrimmage to our last one late last week how much they improved and we're going to get better as we play more games together.”
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Ronnie Wellema had two first half assists to help PV take a 3-0 lead into the break. |
Demarest (0-1) is going to get better, too. The Norsewomen had some chances on the offensive end like in the first half when Chelsea Egan rolled a pass toward the near post that just eluded the out-stretched stick of Madeline Merritts late in the first half. Sallie Corrado was robbed of a goal by junior keeper Judy Gatei (3 saves), who read the angle and smothered the shot from close range and Corrado was in on a breakaway that never reached it conclusion because the final horn sounded before she could get a shot off.
It is those types of sequences that second-year head coach Jennifer Eden is looking to build on as she tries to get the program going in the right direction after a few down seasons. The numbers are up as Demarest has 17 freshman in the program this year and Eden is looking to make field hockey a year round endeavor rather than just a three month activity.
“The big thing is the fundamentals with these kids. We are working on the basics; keeping our sticks on the ground, passing with purpose instead of just ping-ponging it and finishing in front of the goal. It's a process. We don't have a feeder program and that is something that I have been trying to work on,” said Eden, a Passaic Valley High School graduate who went on to play on the first-ever Montclair State University team to make the NCAA tournament. “I want to get it to the point where kids are not putting their sticks down in October and not picking them up again until August. We did a summer clinic this year and had a good turnout and the future of the program is in the youth, but we can still do some good things on the field with who we have out there this year.”
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