OCEAN CITY — Ocean City High School field hockey is a storied program with 14 South Jersey sectional titles and 10 state championships. The girls on the team would love to add to the placards hanging on the side of Ocean City Intermediate School looking over one of the team’s practice fields, but they follow the coach’s philosophy of not getting ahead of themselves.
It’s always one game at a time.
“Our top goal is to win a state championship,” senior Andi Helphenstine said. “I think we have the caliber (of players) to do that.
“We have good leadership. There are a lot of seniors,” she added, noting the team had two strong scrimmages to start, beating Shawnee and Woodstown.
“We’ve been working well together as a team and practice has been helping a lot. It hurts to have only a week of preseason, but I think we’ve been doing our best and working hard. The team is coming together nicely,” she said.
The state shortened the season by a week, leaving two weeks of preseason instead of three.
Helphenstine said the senior leadership will help support the underclassmen. They split up at practice and work with all of the younger girls.
She said she hasn’t scoped out the competition yet.
“It should be exciting to get to play them all for the first time,” she said.
Fellow senior Brooke Hanley has her sights set on a lofty goal as well: “We’re trying to make it far, to states.
“Our team looks really good. We’ve had two scrimmages so far and we beat Shawnee and Woodstown,” she said. “There is definitely a lot to improve on but it’s definitely going to be a good season.”
Hanley said along with the senior leaders, there will be starters from other grades as well, providing a good mix.
“It is early, but we’re starting to work together at all of our practices,” Hanley said.
Referring to the one-game-at-a-time approach, she said that extends beyond games. “That’s how we build. We do that for everything, even our runs. One thing at a time.”
Sophomore Taryn Dolka is back in net after starting as a freshman last year. She is ready to improve on her first campaign.
“It feels really good to be back because you have that first year under your belt. You kind of shook out all the nervous jitters, all the intense games and rivalry games, you’re ready for more,” she said.
Dolka feels good about the defenders in front of her. “I’m liking it a lot. I think we can really get it going this season and I feel it will be strong. I think we can run deep in the playoffs with it,” she said.
Her goal: “Win. Win as much as possible and not stop winning.”
Coach Kelsey Burke likes what she is seeing with the shorter preseason.
“It definitely condenses everything. You have to get to it a lot quicker, but the girls have been great so far,” she said. “The practices have been effective. We look forward to game play. We return a good group from last year; a lot of starters are back. That helps with a shorter preseason, being able to rely on their knowledge from last year.”
Burke has seven or eight returning starters “so I’m excited about that. We have sophomores playing and starting, juniors same thing, all the way up through seniors. It’s a good blend.”
She said the attackers are going to be Tricia Nicoletti and Julie Neff. “They had 20 goals each last year, so I’m excited for them.”
“In the midfield we have Brooke Hanley, a seasoned veteran, she’s been on varsity for three years now. And in the backfield we have Andi Helphenstine, a senior and returning captain, and Bri Fabi, who started last year as a sophomore. And Taryn Dolka returning in goal.”
Asked about goals, she reiterated her philosophy and added, “I’m just excited to see us all come together and see the progress from now until October-November.”
The Cape-Atlantic League realigned this year so the team’s division games will include Egg Harbor Township, Hammonton, Millville and Atlantic City. They also will be playing a lot of non-conference teams and Burke always likes to have games against regional teams “just to kind of see what the status is like across South Jersey and play anyone who wants to play us.”
The girls open at Millville at 3:45 p.m. Thursday. Their first home game is 11 a.m. Saturday against West Essex on the turf at Carey Stadium.
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff