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Honored
The six Woodstock Academy field hockey seniors were treated royally during Senior Day Oct. 23. Photo by Lauren Gagnon.
The final week of the regular season is here for fall sports teams with the exception of football.
For those teams, it’s a chance to honor seniors, most of whom have been a part of the program for the last four years.
Such was the case for the Woodstock Academy field hockey team Oct. 23 as it honored six seniors for their participation.
Sofia Murray, Julia Powell, Eliza Simpson, Tegan Perry, Donela Perzichino and Elaina Borski were honored prior to a game with Wethersfield.
Unfortunately, Wethersfield made the rest of the day difficult as it posted a 5-0 win over the Centaurs (3-9-2).
But the Centaurs did have a nice start to the week. The Centaurs picked up their second and third wins of the season with Eastern Connecticut Conference victories over Waterford and NFA on the road.
Those victories proved to coach Lauren Gagnon that her young team is starting to grow up. “We are starting to figure out spacing a little better and learning to trust in one another a little bit more. We had that issue at the beginning of the year, simply because they had never played together before or were in different positions than they are used to. They are more flexible now and are able to roll with the punches and figure it out,” said Gagnon.
Woodstock opened the week with an overtime victory over Waterford, 1-0. Borski scored her third goal of the season as she broke away from the Lancer defense in the 7 v. 7 overtime, and, as expected, Waterford’s goalie came out to cut off Borski’s angle.
Gagnon said she had been harping on her players to try and push the ball around the Lancers’ keeper. Borski listened and got the game winner.
A freshman took more of the spotlight in a 4-2 win over the Wildcats. Grace Pokorny scored a goal and had two assists.
“She has been developing very fast. She has the nice ice hockey skills and is starting to put it all together,” Gagnon said. The Centaurs needed that.
NFA was fired up as it was its Senior Night. But Woodstock cooled the fire a bit when Pokorny scored the first goal of the game.
The Wildcats rallied but the Centaurs doubled up on their opponents when Sophia Petrella, Chloe Nason, and Borski all scored.
The brief win streak came to an end Oct. 21 when E. Lyme shutout Woodstock, 2-0.
The loss left the Centaurs with a 3-5-2 league record, tied with Waterford for fourth place in the league, but still with games against Killingly (Oct. 25 which ended too late for this edition) and Fitch (Saturday) to play.
The top four teams qualify for ECC tournament play and the Centaurs are happy to have a chance to be a part of that mix.
“I think it sends a message that even though we are a young team and we lost a dozen seniors last year doesn’t mean you can count us out. We did have a really rough start to the season so every game in the ECC is incredibly important. It can mean the difference between having an extra two or three games to going home on the 30th,” said Gagnon.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy