TIGERS RIDE EARLY OUTBURST TO VICTORY
COHOES, N.Y. » Playing in the elements, it was a tale of two halves and adjustments in a clash between the EmmaWillard Jesters and Cohoes Tigers. While not a huge sample size, both squads entering the contest unbeaten at 1- 0. After falling to the Jesters by a count of 16-9 last season, the Tigers were prepared right out of the gate in their 14-5 victory.
“Today was one of our goal games,” Tigers attacker Sam Dayter said. “This was one of the games we wanted to win from the beginning of the season, circled on the calendar, so we were ready coming out for this. It didn’t matter what happened, so we wanted to attack from step one and we did that.”
The Tigers certainly did, jumping out to a 9- 0 advantage by halftime. It was Dayter, ripping rope in the early going, netting the first two goals on the afternoon for Cohoes. In total, Dayter tallied four times and added a helper for the Tigers.
“We got a lot of the draw control. Once you have possession, everything else kind of falls into place. So I think getting possession is a real key to having a good offense,” Tigers head coach Laura Murawski said of her team’s offensive outburst. “They’re just exciting to watch, they’re great players, they’re exciting to watch, they make things happen on the field. It’s fun.”
While the Tigers jumped out to a big halftime advantage, the Jesters fine tuned their strategy and found more success in neutralizing Dayter and creating more offense in the opposite direction.
“At one point we were up 4-2 in the second half. It was a big effort. This is only our second game and only our fourth or fifth day outside. We’re really pleased at what our team is doing. They’re working on their basic skills,” Jesters head coach Elizabeth Perry said of
her team’s second half rebound. “We just wanted to have them stay tight and really be on the person and take care of the ball and that’s what they did. They were good about stepping up and putting pressure on. I would say that for the second half we put more pressure on the ball handlers and so that was good. And we shut down number 20 [ Dayter], we were better about face guarding her, she was the one that was scoring all of their goals, so we tried to shut her down.”
Helping to step up for the Jesters offensive output was Heather Morrell, recording a hat trick and a helper. As did Anna Boggess and Calynn Cerniglia, each tallying a marker.
Yet, as the Jesters made adjustments, so too did the Tigers.
“It’s always a thing. I’m always face guarded so you get used to it,” Dayter said. “Three-four years, you get used to it. You just got to play through it, ignore it.”
Dayter’s teammates were tall to the task of picking up a balanced Cohoes attack.
“It was a good day for all of us we played as a team, which hasn’t happened in recent years and we’ve been playing really good as a team this year,” the SUNY Poly bound Dayter said. “Everyone else stepped up too, once they started face guarding me. Emily [ Walker] stepped up, Abby [Munson] stepped up.”
Munson registered a four- point performance with two goals and two helpers and Walker recorded a five- point outing, equaling Dayter’s four goals for the team high and adding an assist. Maddy Johnson also tallied twice. Olivia Huneau and Maggie Roby also found the back of the net for the Tigers.
“I thought they played great. We’ve been working on slide defense and mak- ing sure we’re there for each other and I think they really pulled that out today,” coach Murawski said. “I think the offense works well together, there’s defi- nitely some strong players. People are up and coming and then there’s still some work to do but I thought they played a pretty good game.”