SWEET 16! How sweet it is!

Wednesday marked the first NCAA appearance in Stevens Field Hockey history! For many of us, it still has not set in and yet WE ARE IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT.

Not including morning classes and labs, the day began at 1:15 pm in the locker room. With music playing and the occasional outbursts of singing, the team prepared for warm-ups. The coaches finally came in for the pregame talk - which gets more and more interesting as the season continues. Everyone broke out in laughter when we noticed Jess Reed passing out lobster bibs. Yes - white, plastic lobster bibs. This game was more than just being in the tournament, we were playing to continue to play. We were playing to earn our spot in the Sweet 16. We were playing to earn our lobster dinner in Maine!

3:00 pm was game time. At the end of the first half, we were up 1-0 but we knew the last 35 minutes would be a fight. Someone's season would end after the game and no one was ready to give up. With 14 minutes left in the game, Wooster scored to tie the game 1-1. We continued to dominate the play and had numerous scoring opportunities but nothing was going in the goal. Hillary Paul scored the game winning goal off of a penalty stroke with roughly 10 minutes left. The rest of the game was a blur, as both teams were fighting to gain clean possession of the ball. The final score was 2-1 in favor of the ducks!

Once we were back in the locker room, a tearful Kerri Polidore reminded the team that the seniors had just played their last home game – and it sure felt good for it to end in a win! The season is far from over, as we have a huge game against Bowdoin on Saturday. We are the underdog, but that will just make victory even sweeter!

MEET THE 2008 EMPIRE 8 CHAMPIONS! Thank you to all of our friends and family for your support. We will see you on Wednesday, November 12, 2008 at Stevens for our 3:00pm match-up against Wooster!

CONFERENCE CHAMPIONS

“That just happened!” –another popular phrase of Stevens Field Hockey
Even before I came on my recruiting trip in November 2004 Coach Reed believed that she could build a championship team. Yesterday it happened as Stevens field hockey defeated W&J 3-1 to win the Empire 8 conference championship. The best explanation for this entire weekend is the following quote by Douchan Gersi that Women’s Basketball left in our locker room: “Victory always starts in the head. It's a state of mind. It then spreads with such radiance and such affirmations that destiny can do nothing but obey.” We believed in each other, we believed that we could win, and we WANTED A CHAMPIONSHIP T-SHIRT.
Looking back on yesterday, the day is a big blur. It started with our assistant coach drinking multiple cups of coffee, the team warming up in shirts we made the night before, and our famous singing of the National Anthem. All of which was followed by some of the most confident 70 minutes of field hockey that this team has played. Before the much awaited t-shirt presentation, Alli Shields was named tournament MVP, a well deserved honor for our “midget.” After the team pictures, the celebration continued with our family and fans at our second tailgate of the weekend!
Other than the t-shirt, the best thing about winning the conference is that we receive an automatic bid to the NCAA’s. At approximately 11pm Sunday, the bracket was posted on the NCAA website. I had just opened my computer when I noticed, so I clicked on the bracket and left the room before I even looked. I knew Kara had been refreshing her Internet Explorer all night, so I ran straight to her room (screaming). Once Kara opened the bracket we found out that we will be playing Wooster on Wednesday. This added to the excitement as Sloth (’08 alumnae) is the assistant coach at Wooster. We then noticed the asterisk next to our name, indicating that we are HOSTING the game! Home field advantage is huge in field hockey and I am excited for whatever Wednesday brings.
So look for Stevens Field Hockey on campus today – we are wearing the sweet Empire 8 CHAMPIONSHIP t-shirts!!
-Casey Scherck

Junior Attacker Kara "SKA-DOOSH" Borzillo

Championship Game Weekend

First off I would like to start by warning anyone who is reading this that there are a few common phrases that will probably pop up every once in a while on this blog. These phrases all have varying origins, and most sound funnier when our team actually says them, but overall just sound goofy out of context. Anyway, the current hot phrases include: rip city (also rip township, the borough of rip, tip city), skadoosh, any possible Harry Potter reference (especially those involving Voldemort/Liz Zmijewski), and as of late OOOH OOOOH!!! (see the movie Baby Mama for full understanding). Now that all the technicalities are out of the way, on to the good stuff, like the fact that Stevens Field Hockey is heading to the Empire 8 Championship game today!!!! The theme of this entire weekend has really been just spending plenty of time together doing plenty of fun activities; my favorite being the team dinners. Friday night involved a slightly later practice than usual immediately followed by dinner made by Head Coach Jess Reed and assisted by a bunch of the girls on the team. The team enjoyed watching some game-tape and strategizing before going our separate ways and heading to sleep. Saturday was Game Day. After our always changing pregame talk we took the field and then proceeded to go to rip city all over Ithaca by winning 5-1. The whole team was super excited to get to play in the championship game and brought a little bit of that excitement to the Women’s Volleyball Championship Game, where the girls eventually won! Now we’re off to play Washington and Jefferson this morning, if you get a chance check it out on http://www.empire8.tv starting at 1pm.
It’s a great day to be a duck!!!

Meet the 2008 Stevens Field Hockey Team.

Empire 8 Championships

The Stevens Field Hockey Team is hosting the 2008 Empire 8 Championships on Saturday, November 8, 2008 and Sunday, November 9, 2008. First up on Saturday, Stevens squares off against the Ithaca College Bombers. The game is set for a noon time start. The last time these two teams faced off, Stevens took a decisive win beating Ithaca 3 -0.

For those of you who do not know, this is the first time Stevens has made an appearance in the Empire 8 Conference Playoffs. This season has been a year of incredible firsts....

We are hoping to continue the "firsts" with: Winning our First Conference Championship and Making our First Appearance in the NCAA Tournament.