Tara McNally, Carly Hanin score in 2-1 win to take sectional championship
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY – Egg Harbor Township had a clear strategy when the Eagles came to Carey Stadium Saturday morning to take on the Red Raiders in the South East Region Group A field hockey final: have defender Emily Gargan stick to Tara McNally like glue.
The Eagles were focusing on McNally, an Ocean City attacker who’s had multiple multiple-goal games this season, to keep her off the board.
It made sense because the Red Raiders were missing fellow attacker Nya Gilchrist, who was forced to watch the game from across the street with two other senior captains, Katie Bowman and Sophia Ruh, because all three were quarantined along with goalkeeper Nora Bridgeford because they sat near someone who tested positive for COVID-19. Another starter, Morgan Decosta, was out for the game on injury.
With five Ocean City starters out of the game, the Eagles did their best to stop McNally.
“We were straight-up marking McNally the whole time,” EHT coach Kristi Troster said. “We wanted to make everybody else beat us. My kid, Gargan, did a great job, keeping her touches limited during the course of the game.”
But it wasn’t quite enough.
Egg Harbor Township held Ocean City scoreless through the first half of the game, but McNally was able to find the net off a corner play to make it 1-0 just over two minutes into the second half.
Despite trailing, the Eagles never let up on their offensive and defensive pressure and were able to tie the game with seven minutes minutes left in regulation on a penalty shot awarded to Kylie Elwell.
The game went to 7-on-7 play in overtime and although Ocean City dominated early by keeping the attack in the EHT end of the field, Eagles goalkeeper Rebecca Macchia stymied all the attacks in the first OT period, coming out of the cage to stop one-on-one breaks.
The coach credited her junior goalie, who has been the starter since she entered EHT’s program. “She’s fantastic. She’s technically sound. Her reaction time is great.”
But Macchia couldn’t be in two places at once.
McNally figured into the final score in the second overtime period. With McNally attacking from the right, Macchia moved to that side of the goal to defend the shot, but it was wide to the left, where teammate Carly Hanin had stationed herself on the other side of the cage. Before Macchia could shift back, the junior sent the ball into the cage and the Ocean City players jumped for joy at the victory.
“Tara was relentless in her pursuit trying to free herself,” Ocean City coach Kelsey Burke said. “She scored our first goal and assisted our game-winner. That’s just a testament to the kind of player she is.”
“It was definitely different, even when we didn’t have the ball they were marking me,” McNally said. “I had to find a way around that. It was definitely a challenge.”
On her first goal, she saw the defender charging at her during the corner play. “I dodged her and I was lucky enough to score,” McNally said.
On the overtime game-winner, she noted, “I was just looking to take a shot and it went wide and Carly was there in good position and she touched it in.”
Missing the other three senior captains and goalie was tough, she said. “It was another challenge, but we said we were going to win for them and that’s what we did,” McNally said.
“It honestly feels pretty cool because we worked so hard for this,” Hanin said. “Since the summer we haven’t stopped working at it. I think it feels pretty amazing to get that goal and win.”
She noted the difficulty in going from full-team play to 7-on-7.
“Honestly, having those couple people down doing 7-on-7 is honestly a lot because we’re all fighting for the same exact thing, wanting that goal,” Hanin said. “Being down those players on the same amount of field is twice as hard to do.”
She also touched on what it was like having so many teammates unable to play during the final.
“We had a lot of downs this season,” Hanin said, “but every time we never stopped working at it and honestly everything paid off.”
“That’s how our season went,” Burke said. “There were a ton of bumps, a ton of roadblocks, but I credit these kids. They stuck with each other, they played through a lot of crazy things, and ultimately our team was successful because we are a team.”
She explained how she made her choices when play went to overtime.
“Sticking with who’s hot that day, with what’s working,” Burke said. “Tara was out there. Alexis (Smallwood) was out there, she’s a senior. Andi (Helphenstine) was hot all game. Andi was hot all season. Camryn (Flynn) played well today so we kept her in. Racheli (Levy-Smith) is fast. Forwards just kept rolling people … trying to get those fast breaks. Carly (Hanin) didn’t start overtime, but she was the one who scored.”
Helphenstine is a sophomore and during 7-on-7 looked pretty solitary being the last line of defense in front of her goalie, Keely Calloway, who had 5 saves in the game.
“There’s definitely a lot more pressure (during 7-on-7), but it’s a lot easier when you know that your teammates are hustling back for every play,” she said. “You’re not alone, even if it feels like that sometimes.”
“It’s so special being a part of this team,” she added. “We’re all really close this year and I’m thankful to be a part of it.”
Troster was thankful for the EHT recreational program because it let her team practice on a faster surface before coming to Ocean City’s artificial turf field. EHT has artificial turf, but the field is being rebuilt so the girls have been playing on a slower grass field all season. She said her team lost 9-1 to Ocean City in a scrimmage at the beginning of the year. That’s the only time they played on turf before the sectional final.
“The kids were fired up. They were ready to play,” she said. “We’ve been a great grass team all year and they did a great transition onto this fast-paced game. I do have speed on my team that helped us with that transition.”
The coach said she was happy her 11-3 team made it to the final, that it was against Ocean City and a local game. “The kids love to play their local rivals and I’m happy that we’re here playing field hockey today,” she said. Although she was disappointed her team lost, “I’m super proud of everything they did.”
Ocean City finished the season with a 12-2 record, the only losses coming to non-conference teams. Because of COVID-19 restrictions, the season ends with the sectional championships. There are no state championship tournaments this season.