Taylor’s late goal lifts La Plata field hockey over North Point
Taylor’s tally pushes Warriors past North Point in field hockey
From the middle stages of the first half through the latter part of the second half of Tuesday evening’s Southern Maryland Athletic Conference Potomac Division field hockey contest, La Plata and North Point were deadlocked at 1 on the scoreboard.
That would change with 1 minute 38 seconds remaining as Madison Taylor knocked in the eventual game-winning winning goal into the back of the cage from a scramble in the box to lead La Plata to a 2-1 victory over the visiting Eagles.
About 3 1/2 minutes earlier, the La Plata senior took a shot, but North Point senior goalkeeper Juli Rosasco made a huge stop to prevent the shot attempt from getting through.
“The game was really tight and the adrenaline was going and at the end you just have to push yourself,” said Taylor, a two-year varsity for the Warriors. “We wanted this game really bad and we did not want it to go to overtime. We realized that we had to keep pushing ourselves and not give up.”
The Warriors avenged last year’s 3-1 loss to the Eagles by countering with a win of their own.
“Last year we did not play well against them and that is another reason we pushed ourselves harder because wanted to win and our goal is to be [division] champions and we want to be the first team to be able to get through to that,” Taylor said.
La Plata (3-3-1 overall, 2-0 SMAC Potomac) has won back-to-back contests to start division play against county foes, also shutting out St. Charles 7-0 on Oct. 20.
For a huge chunk of the second half Tuesday, the Warriors, who had 13 shots on goal to just 3 for North Point, had possession on their side of the field but could not convert on scoring opportunities. But Taylor, who came off a three-goal game in the St. Charles win, was able to finally end the long scoring drought between both teams.
“We’ve been really working transitioning the ball and then attacking in the goal and taking shots,” La Plata head coach Pomie Radcliff said. “We did take a lot more shots this game and their goalie had an excellent game and we are continuing to work on deflections and just getting your sticks on the ball.”
North Point (1-6, 0-2), which is on a five-game losing streak, being shut out in its previous four contests entering Tuesday, took the lead first in the 12th minute of the game when Sydnie Bealle pushed a goal through a crowd of La Plata defenders.
“We played on our defense end way too long. We have to work on clearing the ball out better past the 16-yard mark and past the 25 and creating our own offensive transition,” North Point head coach Sandra Fair said. “La Plata was very good at stops and pokes and managed to keep taking the ball from us. We ended up 75 percent of the time on defense. We want to work on taking more and more shots, especially first touch shots.”
Six minutes later, La Plata’s Sydney Maddox scored on an assist from Rachel Svites to tie the game at 1.
“We have everyone back from last year’s team so we have a lot of experience and this year we have a lot more confidence and we play really strong defensively,” Radcliff said. “We want to continue to work on our fundamentals such as stickwork and adding in communication. Attacking the goal has been a plus for us and today we did a good job of that. We didn’t want to go to overtime today and I’m proud of them.”
Warriors goalie Taylor Rollins finished with two saves in the win.