Taylor’s overtime goal propels La Plata field hockey to 2A South final
Taylor’s game winner lifts Warriors over Calvert, to 2A South final
After 63 minutes 5 seconds of scoreless play Monday in the Class 2A South Region Section I championship, the La Plata field hockey team decided that enough was enough.
On a corner attempt, senior Rachel Svites fired a pass toward senior team- mate Madison Taylor, who slid a shot past goalkeeper Karleigh Lister to propel the Warriors to a 1-0 overtime victory over the visiting Calvert Cavaliers.
La Plata (9-5-1 overall), the section’s top seed, advances to the 2A South championship game where it will take on host Kent Island of Queen Anne’s County at 3:30 p.m. today. Kent Island defeated Parkside of Wicomico County, 2-0, in Monday’s Section II final.
“We actually never scored on a corner before, it’s something that we work on in practice,” said Taylor, who scored the goal with 6 minutes 55 seconds left in the overtime period, which consisted of a 10-minute, sudden-victory format with each team playing with just seven players. “The last time we played [Calvert] we tied (2-2 on Sept. 9), so we didn’t know how it was going to go. This is really exciting to be in the region final.”
Following the goal, Taylor’s teammates joined her at the crease in celebration.
“At first I was suppose to hit it in the goal, but missed it so I dribbled in and passed it Taylor and she hit it in,” Svites said. “Kent Island is really good, but we are going to try our hardest and advance to states.”
Monday’s contest was a defensive stalemate as there were limited scoring
opportunities on each side and neither team was in complete control. Both teams had several shots throughout the game get close to the cage, but the attempts either went wide or were stopped on stick saves.
“We knew the game against Calvert was going to be neck and neck again,” said La Plata head coach Pomie Radcliff, whose team defeated fourth-seeded St. Charles 6-0 in Thursday’s section semifinals. “It’s been a long time that we’ve been in the regional final, so this is great for the girls. We kept telling them that if they believe in themselves that they can do anything. We’ve been working on a lot on our corners and it was nice to see us score on a goal on that.”
Calvert (6-5-2) shut out third-seeded Thomas Stone 5-0 in the section semifinals on Thursday to reach Monday’s section final.
“On that last play we got a little bit out of position there, but the girls played hard and I thought we played one of our best games of the season,” Calvert head coach Dawn Lister said. “We played strong and physical and so was La Plata. We were evenly matched, they just got lucky and got the goal in.”
On her team’s season, Lister said, “We got better as the season went on and really improved. We played in a very tough [Chesapeake] Division, but today we played all out we just came up short.”
La Plata goalie Taylor Rollins finished with five saves to help preserve the shutout, while the younger Lister collected two saves in the losing effort for Calvert.