Dulaney field hockey reaches state final for 2nd year in row
South River, Chesapeake-AA advance in field hockey
Dulaney’s field hockey team scored a goal in each half and defeated Winston Churchill, 2-0, in a Class 4A state semifinal game on Monday night at Paint Branch High.
The Lions (12-6) advanced to the state final for the second straight year, where they will play South River on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. at Washington College.
South River defeated Dulaney, 2-1, last year in the state championship game.
Sidney Snyder scored the first goal off an assist by Kate Proefrock with 2:42 left in the first half.
The play began with a nice feed from Zoe Hermann to Proefrock and it ended with a reverse sweep into the cage.
“We’ve been saying all year we want to have a nice reverse sweep goal and it was a great day to have it,” Dulaney coach Kellie Fialcowitz said. “It was beautiful, it was well-played and I can’t draw it up any better than that.”
Snyder knew the Lions, who outshot the Bulldogs 11-3, needed to make something happen.
“It was just really in the moment,” Snyder said. “I saw that it was open and we were really struggling with our shots in the beginning, even though we were dominating and just once it was open I knew we needed one to get our momentum up and get us through the game.”
Dulaney increased the pressure early in the second half and finally got its second goal on a shot by defender Mae Dickens with 2:33 left in the game.
Dickens was part of a defense, with Mae Jung, Emma Chandler and Amalia Hobbs that helped secure the shutout.
“Our defense did a great job,” Fialcowitz said. “They stepped up. Overall, it was a great team win.”
NO. 5 SOUTH RIVER 4, CLARKSBURG 0: South River dominated play in the first half of its Class 4A state semifinal against Clarksburg, but found itself in a scoreless game as the second half started. One harmless deflection, and all of a sudden the Seahawks could have found themselves behind.
The Seahawks did what good teams do, though.
Alexis Seidel scored the first of her two goals on a rebound a little more than a minute into the second half and South River added three more goals the rest of the way and defeated Clarksburg, 4-0, at Paint Branch High.
NO. 11 CHESAPEAKE-AA 4, WESTMINSTER 0: Chesapeake broke through early in the second half and ran away with a 4-0 victory over the Owls at Broadneck High. The Cougars will be going for a third consecutive 3A state title Saturday at Washington College.
Westminster (13-4) said it knew the scouting report, that Chesapeake was a strong second-half team. The Cougars (12-6) boasted a go-to player on offense in senior Rachel Fleig, who became her team’s all-time leading scorer in Chesapeake’s first playoff game by reaching 70 goals and 50 assists.
Fleig scored twice in the second half, her first coming during a penalty corner play less than eight minutes after the break. NO. 3 C. MILTON WRIGHT 5, BLAKE 0: The Mustangs dominated from the opening Dulaney's Sidney Snyder, middle, celebrates with teammates Zoe Hermann (4), Kate Proefrock (9) and Lucy Jung (8) after scoring a goal against Churchill. whistle against Blake in the 3A state semifinals at Broadneck High, scoring four times in the first half en route to a 5-0 victory and a berth in the state championship game for a second straight year.
The team now turns its attention to a title-game rematch Saturday at 11 a.m. at Washington College against ChesapeakeAA, which beat Westminster, 4-0, in its semifinal game and earned a 2-0 victory over CMW when the teams squared off in last year’s 3A final. will play Walt Whitman, the Class 4A West Region champion, Saturday at Wise High School in Prince George’s County. Whitman defeated Gaithersburg, 3-2.