By Phil Murphy
Senior Multimedia/Content Manager, Washington, D.C.
** Re-live the entire game in 10 minutes with the video player below. Also, watch post-game interviews from Thursday.**
Click here for the photo gallery from Thursday’s game.
Good Counsel Coach Kelly Stodter may have unlocked the key to defeating a Bethesda-Chevy Chase team that has appeared in 19 of the past 21 Maryland state championship games: socks and a basketball court.
The Falcons practice indoors an hour every day on hardwood courts with socks over their sticks to improve stick-handling and passing on the fast surface. And their speed and athleticism played significant roles in the 2-1 road win over the legendary Barons on Thursday.
“Since August 15, we’ve been inside doing these special drills – box drills – on a basketball court with socks on our sticks,” explained Stodter, whose Falcons have won five of the last seven WCAC titles. “The velocity is so much faster and the stick has to be so much faster. And then you develop an off hand.
“When you’re doing nothing but all these drills on a basketball court, it’s nothing but click, click, click. If at Good Counsel we’re inside, it’s fast, fast, fast. Then we go outside, it’s Kentucky Bluegrass and it’s very, very slow. If we keep doing [that], they’ll grow and grow and grow as players.”
Added junior Shannon Lechner: “Our stick skills were a little bit rusty from playing summer lacrosse, soccer and swimming. The ball is a lot faster in the gym, obviously. It increases our stick skills. Taking care of the ball a lot quicker, it really helped on a field like this today.”
But at half time, the score was tied at 1 and it was Bethesda-Chevy Chase who had the visible possession advantage, having taken six penalty corners to Good Counsel’s one.
The Falcons, however, capitalized when it counted. They drew a penalty stroke with 9 minutes, 37 seconds remaining in the second half.
Lechner, the team’s leading scorer, is one of many Falcons who have voluntarily stayed after practice to work on penalty strokes. She stepped to the spot and calmly flipped the ball past the outstretched glove of senior goalkeeper Claire Veith for the game-winning goal.
“You never know when you’re going to [take a stroke],” Lechner said. “We had to go into strokes in overtime against Holy Cross last year. It’s probably the most nerve-wracking part of field hockey. You’re all by yourself.
“It’s all mental. I was just praying that it would go in, that all my hard work and practicing would pay off. We wanted it really bad.”
Added Stodter: “She scored on the right pipe; the right post. And that’s the weak side of the goalie because it’s her left foot. So yesterday, I kept saying, ‘I’ll give you a dollar’ — but I was kidding — ‘if you get it inside that right post.’ And that’s exactly where she scored.”
The Falcons dropped a forward back as a second sweeper and survived the Baron onslaught over the final minutes. But Good Counsel forced to do so without senior midfielder Monica Baumgartner, an All-American lacrosse player and one of the team’s best on-the-ball defenders.
With 4:36 remaining, an errant Bethesda pass struck Baumgartner above the left eye and, after a moment, she had to be helped from the field.
“She’s about to get stitches,” said Stodter. “She got stitches the last time we played this team, right in the chin. She’s a tough kid and she was not supposed to play today. She didn’t start. She has a sore shoulder and was not supposed to play, but when they scored the first goal, she insisted on going in.
“And she didn’t come out until she took a ball.”
Added sophomore Kelly Lechner, who scored the Falcons’ first goal: “She planned on not playing this game, but being a team captain, she wanted to pull through for her team and she ends up getting hit in the eye … She’s our best player.”
This game is the first of a grueling stretch for Good Counsel (1-0) and Bethesda-Chevy Chase. Both the Falcons and Barons play a non-conference schedule to open the season that looks more like a state playoff bracket.
Good Counsel will play Seton tomorrow before taking on rival Holy Cross on Tuesday and St. Mary’s Ryken on Thursday.
Bethesda-Chevy Chase (1-1), which has only lost 29 times in Amy Wood’s 15-plus seasons as head coach, faces both halves of last year’s Maryland 4A final – Severna Park and Quince Orchard – in a double-header on Saturday.
“We were out-athleted today,” said Wood (222-29-5 all-time), who only returns three starters from last year’s Maryland 3A state runner-up. “We were out of gas and out-athleted. … We had opportunities and we never took any shots in the circle. They had far fewer opportunities inside the 25, but they probably got more shots off than us.
“[Our girls] have to decide if they want it. They didn’t go in with the mentality to get every ball and Good Counsel did. … They have to decide because we’re playing two pretty good teams on Saturday and they have to have the upstairs mentality.”
E-mail: pmurphy@digitalsports.com
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