Team has young lineup, but many returning starters
OCEAN CITY – The Ocean City High School field hockey program has experience despite still being young.
“We really are an experienced, but inexperienced team in the same breath,” explained new head coach Carole Williams.
“We do have a lot of returning starters, but they were freshmen as starters. So I have six starting sophomores, three starting juniors, and a starting freshman,” Williams said. Her main lineup includes another junior, sophomore and senior.
The Red Raider captains are seniors Megan Burn and Darby Gould and juniors Stevie Wright and Casey Adamson.
The Red Raider girls started off the season bracketing a pair of shutout victories around a 5-2 loss to St. Joseph of Hammonton (4-0).
Williams spent five years as the field hockey coach at Buena Regional High School, took time off to raise her kids and came back to the sport last year as a volunteer assistant at OCHS, but then head coach Kelsey Burke resigned the position this summer.
“I was supposed to be the JV coach this year and I ended up picking up the whole program,” she said.
Williams enjoys working with this young team.
“They are hard workers. They are little sponges. They pick up everything. They are listening, they’re hanging on every word,” she said after the Sept. 12 victory over Egg Harbor Township.
“We did game tape yesterday. They were watching, they were joining in, they were saying what they saw. They are working really hard to get as good as they can get,” Williams said. “And I am very proud of all the improvements we’ve made just from our scrimmages and then our first three games.”
The Red Raider girls opened with a 6-0 victory over Our Lady of Mercy Academy led by three goals from Adamson, two by Lily Cozamanis and one courtesy of Wright. In the 5-2 loss to St. Joseph, Wright and Adamson had the goals and Lyla Clark provided assists on both. To keep the game close, goalie Devin Dolka made 22 saves.
On Friday, the girls beat EHT 4-0 behind goals from Adamson, Clark, Caroline Bickings and Marley Dwyer.
Dwyer had a nice loft goal with 2:47 left in the game with an assist by Clark. Clark had perhaps the easiest goal on a heads-up play. With just less than nine minutes left in the second quarter and Ocean City on the attack, many of the girls stopped playing thinking a penalty was coming, but there was no whistle. Clark, realizing there was no whistle, scored from right in front of the goal.
This season Williams has a few girls leading the attack. “Casey Adamson has been amazing in the attacking circle. She has scored five goals in three games. Stevie Wright has been great in the center of the field. Lyla Clark has been fantastic moving the ball down the right side,” the coach said.
“I have two really strong center mids (Dwyer and Bickings). They’re both sophomores. They’re learning to play together where they are.
Again, new positions where they are on the field. I have a really solid center back. My goalie is amazing,” Williams said.
Dolka didn’t play varsity last year because she was behind her older sister, Taryn Dolka, who was recruited to play for Division One Lockhaven University this fall. The younger Dolka “is a very solid goalie and she is a great voice back there. She’s really helping with directing traffic and the young program that we do have,” the coach added. “And my freshman (Nellie Schwegman) is coming up solid, too. She’s really, really aggressive and doesn’t seem to be afraid to be out there at all.”
Coincidentally, Williams played against legendary Ocean City field hockey coach Trish LeFever, who led the team to its first state championship in 1997 then followed it up with a bunch more state titles.
“My graduating year was 1997 so I played against Trish LeFever in 1996,” Williams said, acknowledging the pedigree of the program that produced 10 state championships in all, but none in recent years.
“So setting goals in that capacity – Ocean City has an amazing history – I would love to be able to get back to that powerhouse that we’ve had in the past,” Williams said. “But we are taking everything one step at a time, one day at a time.”
One thing in the coach’s favor is the youth of her lineup combined with the varsity experience they already gained and will continue to gain. It will give Williams even more to build upon in the next year or two.
The Red Raiders were at Middle Township Monday and will host Hammonton at 3:45 p.m. Friday at Carey Stadium.
– STORY and PHOTOS by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
