OCEAN CITY — The Red Raider field hockey team led Cedar Creek 3-1 after the first half, but broke things open in the third quarter with five consecutive goals. They added one more in the fourth quarter to beat the Pirates 9-1 Thursday, Oct. 9.
Lyla Clark had a hat trick, senior Casey Adamson had two goals and the Ocean City High School girls got one each from Marley Dwyer, Stevie Wright, Caroline Bickings and Amanda Kunze.
The score would have been more lopsided had Pirate goalie Kailyn O’Kane not made 21 saves, compared to the five recorded by Ocean City’s Devin Dolka. The Red Raider defense limited Cedar Creek’s shots on goal.
Throughout the game, Ocean City controlled play to improve to 8-4-1 on the season. The girls also benefited from support from an injured senior on the sidelines.
Clark and Dwyer, both juniors, were happy with the team’s performance against Cedar Creek and their trajectory this season.
“I think we’re doing great so far. We’ve played some really good teams and really held our ground. I think that we’re ramping up just in the right time for states,” Dwyer said. “I’m feeling really good, feeling really happy, feeling ready for to win it all.”
She added that she and Clark are excited to be helping the team and their seniors and are glad to be leaders as well.
“I feel like our whole team, we’re all just so close together, that age isn’t really a factor. We’re all kind of in it all together,” Dwyer said.
“I’m very proud of us. You know, a very special thing about our team is everybody builds each other up. I feel like that’s what sets us apart from others, and that’s just what keeps us going all game,” Clark said. “Everybody out on that field is a leader along with on the sideline off the field, so it’s great.”
Dwyer, who’s committed to play lacrosse at the University of Pennsylvania, scored one of her signature loft goals, sending the ball high in an arc and over the goalie’s head in the second period.
She said a coach from England, Ian Wright, taught that to her a few years back. Wright is a coach for the Jersey Red Knots Field Hockey Team and coached the Ocean City Recreation Department travel team. He also coached Clark.
“He started teaching me and really helped me out with it. I had a lot of fun with it, so I figured I would stick with it,” Dwyer said.
Clark said she is hoping the team can prevail in the Cape-Atlantic League Tournament “and go up from there. I feel like our team is the one to do it.”
Clark’s older sister, Faelyn, is one of the girls helping from off the field. In the very first game of the spring lacrosse season, she tore her ACL. She had surgery last spring and has been rehabbing since, hoping to be back for next spring’s lacrosse season.
“I just love coming and supporting my team. I know I can’t really do much on the field, but I think a big part of being on the team is just being there for everybody, having team spirit and lifting people up when they need it, make sure everyone’s having a good time and everything,” Faelyn said.
The senior got hurt on the same field where field hockey plays its matches at the Tennessee Avenue sports complex.
“It happened literally right over there,” she said, sitting at the scorers table and pointing to the south end of the field. “I was playing defense on a girl and I just stepped the wrong way and went down.”
She has kept her spirits up in spite of losing her junior lacrosse season and fall field hockey season. She is already committed to play lacrosse at Nova Southeastern University near Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
“I just realize that everything happens for a reason and I’m only going to come back stronger,” she said with a big smile. “I’ll have a whole season of lacrosse for high school and then I’ll play lacrosse in college, which will be nice.”
She is looking forward to the warmth of Florida after last winter’s bitter cold in New Jersey.
“I’ve decided that warm weather is probably a better option for me, and the school I’m going to is beautiful and my team’s great. The coaches are great. Everything about it is just perfect,” she said, noting the team’s coaches stood by her after her injury.
Like Dwyer and Lyla Clark, Ocean City’s head coach, Carole Williams, likes the team’s trajectory.
“We’re really starting to figure out some of the things that are going to get us to the level that we’re looking for,” she said after the Cedar Creek game. “We spent a lot of time on a drill yesterday and I saw it all over the field today. So they’re implementing what they’re learning in practice. They’re talking to each other. We’re working on our spacing, and it really showed today,” she said.
There are about three more weeks until sectionals. Ocean City is in South Jersey Group II.
“I believe that we are making the adjustments that we’ve been talking about all year. It’s getting better each game,” she said. “We’re finding the passes that we’re looking for. All the things that we’re working on day after day after day are really starting to show up in the games.”
Williams credited the entire team after the Cedar Creek game.
“I’m more team-focused. I don’t really like to single out one (player) over the other because I feel like it is a team game, and when they’re playing as a team is when we’re playing our best field hockey.”
Coming up, the Raiders host Egg Harbor Township at 4 p.m. Friday, Oct. 16, and Moorestown at 10 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 24.
– STORY and PHOTOS by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
