Glastonbury Takes Thriller from Enfield in Battle of Unbeatens

GLASTONBURY, CT — One of the toughest 24-hour stretches of the season paid off handsomely for the top-ranked Glastonbury High School field hockey team.

Just hours after topping perennial Western Massachusetts champion Longmeadow in a 3-2 thriller Monday night, the Tomahawks returned to their home turf Tuesday afternoon to face talented young upstart Enfield, undefeated at 9-0 and ranked fifth in the state.

Sixty minutes of intense action later, Glastonbury made a conversion of a first-half penalty corner stand up, emerging with a 1-0 victory.

"After playing Longmeadow (Monday) night, we needed our guys to stand up and hold them off, and that's what we did," Glastonbury head coach Maureen Perkins said. "Our D, our keeper, they all came up big when we needed them to. They had to tough it out and dig real deep, and they certainly did that against a really good team."

Tri-captain Lauren David took a penalty corner feed from Lindsay Janeczek and fired the ball past Enfield goalkeeper Kelly Mazza with 12:34 left to play in the first half. It was the last good scoring chance the Tomahawks would have, but their defense and goaltending made that single tally stand up.

The Eagles (9-1) had three good opportunities after intermission, all on penalty corners. Just two minutes into the second half, Enfield worked a set play that resulted in a blast by Taylor Geaglone that sailed just wide of the cage.

With just over six minutes remaining in regulation time, the Eagles thought they had tied the game when a bullet shot by Geaglone got past Glastonbury netminder Emily Pepe. However, the ball clanged off the goalpost and caromed away.

"We all thought it was in, it was hit so hard," Enfield head coach Cookie Bromage said.

Enfield had one final opportunity to force overtime on a penalty corner played out after time expired. Jessie Maier got the ball to Geaglone at the top of the arc, but the defense clamped down as she moved to her left, forcing a high backhanded shot that Pepe stopped to preserve the hard-fought victory.

"I thought the kids played tremendous, they have so much heart," Bromage said.

Glastonbury (12-0) gets a brief respite from the grueling schedule before traveling to West Hartford Thursday to face Hall at 6 p.m. Enfield hosts Norwich Free Academy Thursday, also at 6 p.m.

Photo credits: Tim Jensen