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Field Hockey
Blue Wave Overpowers Staples For 5th Straight League Title
The Ruden Report
11.03.2023
By John Nash
Reporting from Wilton
For the first five minutes and 15 seconds of tonight’s FCIAC field hockey championship game, Darien kept the ball in Staples’ defensive end of the field.
Not once, not even for a nanosecond, did the Wreckers get the ball onto the other side of the field.
It was a harbinger of things to come.
The Blue Wave won its fifth straight FCIAC tournament championship (not including the 2020 COVID season, when there was no real tournament) at Veterans Memorial Stadium, pitching a 3-0 shutout over the Wreckers to take the title.
“They were by far the better team tonight,” Staples coach Ian Tapsall admitted. “That’s the best I’ve seen Darien play in a long time. It seems like every time we play them, they find a different gear. They were superb.”
Ashley Stockdale scored twice to take home the championship game MVP plaque and sophomore goaltender Ella Cherenek, making her first career start, backstopped the shutout for the Wave.
“You know what? I’m always their harshest critic, but we became good in the end and we settled in,” Darien coach Mo Minicus said. “It was just fun to watch.”
While the Blue Wave dominated the first five minutes, controlling possession and keeping the ball in Staples’ defensive end of the field, the Wreckers survived the onslaught without giving up a goal.
Twice in the first quarter, the Wreckers received a pair of questionable cards that put them a man down and still got back to even strength scoreless.
With 2:48 to play in the first half, though, the Wave struck first on a penalty corner.
Katie Savino started the play by inserting the ball to Blake Wilks, who received the ball inches outside the circle, one-touched it into the shooting range and let rip a blast that scooted by the Wreckers’ defense and goaltender Paige Knesich (6 saves) for a 1-0 lead.
“When you score first you can breathe a little bit,” Minicus said.
The Wreckers had a chance to answer with less than a minute left in the first half, taking advantage of their own penalty corner to get a good scoring opportunity.
Cherenek (6 saves) made the stop, however, to keep the game 1-0 at intermission.
The sophomore had replaced goalie JJ Maher in the semifinal game against Greenwich due to injury and played well enough that Minicus and her staff gave her the start in the title tilt.
“She was great. It’s her first start ever,” Minicus said. “We went with our gut. We have two good goalies and Ella finished the Greenwich game great and we started with her and she was just in a zone. When they’re in a zone, you don’t change that.”
Cherenek admitted she was nervous before the game.
“I had never started before and it’s my first-ever year playing goalie and to start the FCIAC finals is the best I ever thought I could do,” she said. “The defense, they’ve been teaching me everything, the angles. They tell me where to go, so it’s not always me talking to them. It’s just helped me be a better player. This is beyond my wildest dream. It’s amazing.”
In the second half, Darien simply went for the jugular with Stockdale at the forefront.
She scored on a rebound of a Staples defender’s save to make it a 2-0 game and then early in the fourth quarter she made a play that simply epitomized how good (and smart) Darien is on the field.
Racing up field and trailing a play, Stockdale heard the whistle for a foul up ahead.
Instead of slowing down and stopping, however, she simply kept running, picked up the ball on the restart, catching the Staples defense flat-footed.
That directly led to Darien’s third goal, all but cementing the Wave’s latest championship.
“Some of the balls were stopped and we took some time to restart, so I knew a quick restart would throw them off,” Stockdale said. “I had problems going left tonight, so I went right instead and saw the goalie in the middle and took my shot.”
Staples had six corners to Darien’s three, and they even hit the post in the final minute, but simply couldn’t get anything going against a Darien defense that included the likes of Kiley Liddell, Savino, Ali Meyer and Kate Bogdan.
“We just weren’t on our game, and that was a bit upsetting,” Tapsall said. “The game can be pretty simple, but Darien doesn’t make it simple. Hitting the post, going down in the circle and getting those corners. But it wouldn’t have made a difference. (Darien) played really well today and we didn’t play like ourselves.”
Darien will take an 18-1 record into the state tournament while the Wreckers are now 16-2-0-1, with both losses coming to the Blue Wave.
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