After beating Mifflin County in a 4-0 blow out last week to win the District 6 championship, the State High field hockey team traveled to Lower Dauphin High School on October 23rd to play against Central Dauphin in a District 3 playoff game. The team faced a 1-4 loss to Central Dauphin, ultimately closing out the season. 

Starting the game for the forwards, Lizzie Paterno, junior; Kyra Whitlark, junior; Rebecca Bonness, junior; and Maddie Tambroni, junior, worked hard to keep the ball moving towards Central Dauphin’s goal. Libby Fortin, senior; Leah Moyer, sophomore; and Johannah Lee, junior, started for the mid position. Starting out for defense, Kendall Kleinman, senior; Isabella Parillo, junior; and Jocelin Kinsey, sophomore, held down their end of the field, where Bayla Furmanek stood in goal. 

In the first two minutes of the game, the energy seemed somewhat low. The ball was on the :ion’s side of the field for the majority of the time, where the team worked to get the ball out. A foul caused a stroke, where Hope Rose, a Central Dauphin forward, faced off against Furmanek. Rose ultimately scored the stroke, but that did not stop the lions. Within the next 5 minutes of the game, the team received a corner from a foul, where Lee was able to execute the corner to score a goal.

“It was very intense,” Fortin, a senior captain, said. “The other team was pretty physical so it was hard to not get physical back, but I think that it was high energy, so it pushed me to be better.”

The game was tied at half-time, where it looked like the Lions had a shot at winning. Keeping up effort and intensity in the second half, the Lions had lots of great plays moving up the field, as well as some great defensive saves by Furmanek, Kleinman, Lee, and the rest of the defense. Three more goals were scored by Central Dauphin in the second half, but the Lions persisted.

Ultimately, the Lions  lost 1-4, but a sense of pride for the season could be felt throughout the team. “I’m proud of how the team chose to preserve through the lows of the season with having some losses that always didn’t go the way that we had hoped,” head coach Bethany Mink said. “I think them being able to leave that behind when postseason rolled around, they were able to to set all that adversity aside and persevere through tough games and win that District 6 championship and then start to enter into District 3 play-offs, is a testament to how they choose to handle how the season played out,” head coach Bethany Mink said.

Although the season is over, the team spirit is still with all of the girls. “I hope that the girls continue to get more confident with who they are as field hockey players, but more importantly as young girls, and just having field hockey be that outlet for them where playing on a team sport can contribute to who they are a person,” Mink said. The team finished their season with a 8-0-12 record.