DHS field hockey crushes Chico
The sweltering sun beat down on red and blue players as the clacking of hockey sticks blended with shouts of encouragement from the sidelines of the hockey field.
The DHS J.V. women’s field hockey team smashed Chico High 2-0 yesterday afternoon with great plays from both offense and defense.
Chico and DHS are notorious field hockey rivals at the varsity level; the rivalry for the J.V. players parallels a sibling’s hatred of her older sister’s enemies.
“I hope these girls play like it’s a rival game,” J.V. coach Lindsay Smith said before the game. “I know our team has the talent to play well against Chico; it’s just a matter of the team playing together and giving it everything they’ve got.”
The game started out with great plays by sophomore midfielder Rachel Paul. Paul continuously knocked the little neon orange ball hard across the field and was there to smack it back towards Chico’s goal whenever it came too close to the DHS side.
Davis’ strong defense kept Chico from advancing on the goal. Freshman Jenna Plasterer and sophomore Emily Barber prevented the ball from reaching the goal box and repeatedly sent it flying to the other side of the field.
Unfortunately, Chico’s equally tight defense kept either team from scoring during the first half. Near the end of the first half, sophomore Audrey McNamara came excruciatingly close to scoring for DHS but was unable to find a chink in the armor of Chico’s unyielding defense.
At the beginning of the second half, the team formed a circle and screamed out one word: “Intensity!” And that word summed up the team’s performance during the last half of the game, mostly played on Chico’s side of the field.
With 14 minutes of the game left, McNamara managed to get past the solid Chico defense and slip the ball into Chico’s goal with a satisfying thud.
Shortly after that first goal, DHS whacked in another goal, bringing the score to 2-0.
DHS easily held off Chico during the last five minutes of the game, aided by a close block from freshman goalie Allyson Weir.
“I think we excelled in the first half, but played our best in the second half,” said Barber after the game.
“We did good. We had really good teamwork,” sophomore Christina Son said.
Sophomore Megan Dickson agrees that the team played extremely well. “I think this has been our strongest game. Our team goal this season was to beat Chico. And we did!” Dickson said.
