Top-ranked Upper Arlington field hockey defeats No. 2 Olentangy Liberty to remain unbeaten
Despite the unusual circumstances, the Upper Arlington field hockey team did its best Sept. 29 to ignore its built-in advantage during a home showdown against Olentangy Liberty.
The Golden Bears, the state’s top-ranked team according to MaxPreps, took a 3-0 lead over the second-ranked Patriots on Sept. 21 before two weather delays forced the game to be suspended. Once play resumed, UA tried to play as if there was no score.
As a result, the Bears considered Haley Menke’s goal 3 minutes, 22 seconds into the second half especially critical, and a lockdown defense took care of everything else in a 4-0 win that kept UA undefeated at 12-0 overall and 6-0 in the COFHL-West Division.
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“We were pretty tired, so we came in with the mentality of (the score being) 0-0 and just finishing this off,” Menke said, alluding to the Bears having played three games in the previous five days. “(On my goal), we got the ball up, Lauren (Wagner) passed it right in front of the goal and I just tapped it in. That was really good for us.
“The team that gets the first goal, that’s the team that gets its energy up and gets more into it. If you don’t get the first goal, there’s a tendency to hang your head. It really helped us get this done.”
The Bears, who have outscored their opponents 66-2, got two saves from freshman goalie Marisa Blauser. Usual starter Miriam Silver, a senior who was unavailable Sept. 29, had two saves Sept. 21.
UA took the lead before the suspension on goals from Wagner, Emily Barker and Mary Backiewicz.
The game was delayed for more than an hour after lightning was sighted, but no rain fell. Play resumed for less than 30 minutes in real time before more lightning was seen, prompting the suspension with 5:26 left in the first half.
“(Liberty) had time to practice against what we do,” Bears coach Sara Greaves said. “I told them that elite teams win anyway, so we had to find a way to come in, figure it out and get goals on the board.
“We still had the majority of the attack, too. We held them to two corners for the entire game, but we’re not satisfied. That said, we came out with a big win.”
Patriots goalie Alayna Bogner had 12 saves Sept. 29. Teammate Annie Lorenz made four stops before the delay as Liberty fell to 9-2 overall and 5-1 in the league.
“We tried to focus on competing at the moment and seeing what we could do in this half. Our defensive execution was much, much stronger than last week and that is our (style of) play,” Liberty coach Marianne Flannery said. “They were much tighter (Sept. 29) across the board.”
@ThisWeekDave
This article originally appeared on ThisWeek: Top-ranked Upper Arlington field hockey beats No. 2 Olentangy Liberty
