1 week Ago By By Steve Jones | Sports writer | [email protected]
Two local field hockey teams will both make their return to the state semifinals 26 years after their last trips. Rome Free Academy, the two-time champion of Section III, takes on Section I champion Mamaroneck at 2 p.m.
on Saturday in a Class A state semifinal on field one at Arlington High School in Lagrangeville, about a 2:40 drive from RFA Stadium. RFA is 19-1 and has won its last 10 games. The team has yielded nine goals this season.
The last three games have all been one-goal games for the Black Knights, who won the section title 1-0 over Cicero-North Syracuse, won a 2-1 subregional game and then a 1-0 regional game. Isibeal McMahon leads RFA with 25 goals and 14 assists. She sits two goals away from tying the program record for career goals.
Her 70 goals are second only to RFA assistant coach Kate Mastracco’s 72. McMahon has not scored since her hat trick in the sectional semifinals. The last time RFA was in the state semifinals was 1998 — four years after the Black Knights had won their lone state title.
In 1998, the Knights made it to the state finals but lost 5-0 to John Jay. This year is the 54-year-old program’s fifth apperance in the tournament. Mamaroneck is 20-0 and ranked first in the state and 16th nationally by MaxPreps.
com . (RFA is ranked fifth in the state.) The Tigers have allowed five goals this season, with 11 straight shutouts.
The team beat Section IX’s Kingston 9-0 in the regional round, with Lily Brickman scoring four times. Brickman leads the Tigers with 34 goals. Catherine D’Arcy has 26 goals and a team-high 24 assists.
“There’s a reason why they’re ranked No. 1 in the state,” said RFA head coach Mackenzie Welter of Mamaroneck’s high-level players and high-level strategy. “It doesn’t matter where they are in the circle, they know how to finish.
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Defensively they haven’t really been tested much this season, so I’m excited to see what we can do against them.” She said of the two top scoring threats for the Tigers, “We think we have a good strategy to combat that.” And while she didn’t get into specifics, the goal is to “take away some of their momentum and frustrate them.
” Welter said the team has used the pressure of the expectations on it as defending sectional champion for fuel this season, especially with the return of virtually the entire 2023 starting lineup other than in goal. “What has impressed me this year, especially from our senior group, they’re not satisified with just a win.” They want to dominate, she said, and they want to show their skill level.
“We have the community support behind us,” and the team wants to win for them. She said RFA started the season with consistency but has continued to improve. “We are doing all of those little things well.
We’ve spent a lot of the postseason working on our individual defense, which has helped us in the subregional and regional games.” Of those last few one-goal games, she said, “Low scoring doesn’t surprise me because in the postseason teams really step up. .
..At the same time, I’m not nervous either.
” Welter said that though McMahon leads the team by nine goals, shutting her down isn’t enough. “We don’t rely on one player to win for us. And at the same time, we want to be a threat so you have to have multiple players who are threats for you.
” Fellow seniors Alexa Thompson (16 goals), Cara Mecca (13 goals) and twin sister Fiona McMahon (12 goals) are also scoring threats. If RFA can keep its season going with a win, the state title game is set for 3 p.m.
on Sunday at the same field. On the other side of the bracket are Sachem East of Section XI and Guilderland of Section II. Comets streak into semifinals The Comets, who won the sectional title in Class D, take on Section IX Class C champion Rondout Valley in a Class C state semifinal at noon on Saturday at Arlington’s field one.
Clinton is 20-1, with the only loss to Class A C-NS to open the season. The Comets have allowed a single goal in the last seven contests. Three players are significant scoring threats for Clinton — senior Gretchen Grimm (28 goals), senior Gracen Grimm (27 goals) and junior Leah Randall (26 goals).
The team has managed to make it through the whole season with its small roster of 13 players, head coach Miquel Grimm noted. “They’re playing really well together,” she said. “They’re where they need to be right now.
Having a whole 20 games together, to know where people are going to be and what they’re going to do, to look for each other.” The senior class, she said, has been key in impressing the importance of the moment to the younger players. “They talk to the freshmen.
They’re good teachers.” She said they’ve made sure the young players are playing as well as they can. The only time the program has been to a state semifinal was in 1998 when the team went on to win its only state title, Grimm noted.
“They’ve been really good about it,” she said of the players being discplined and not looking ahead to the state title game. Rondout Valley is 17-1, ranked 12th in the state. The Ganders have won 16 games in a row — all without surrendering a goal.
One player does most of the scoring for Rondout. Senior Lauren Schoonmaker has 42 of the team’s 109 goals, which helped her earn section most valuable player honors. A pair of freshmen do most of the rest of the damage — Samantha Schneller (14 goals, 13 assists) and Audrey Dennin (12 goals, 13 assists) “It’s hard because there’s not a lot of film on them,” said the Clinton coach about Rondout.
“I’ve seen some really good corners that they’ve had.” She said the team will focus its game plan on stopping Schoonmaker. A helpful part of that, she said, is that Schoonmaker seems to most often be on the right side if the attack, which fits with Clinton’s usual game plan of keeping the ball on its own right side.
With only four goals allowed this year and 28 saves, goalie Sienna Sergio hasn’t had much work to do for Rondout. “I’m sure she hasn’t seen shots like the ones our girls have,” said coach Grimm. “So hopefully that will shake things up — with Gretchen, Gracen, Leah and Katie (Randall) keeping the pressure on.
” The state title game for Class C is set for 12:30 on Sunday at Arlington’s field one. Section IV’s Whitney Point and Section VIII’s Carle Place are on the other side of the bracket..
