Field Hockey Gears Up for Fall

Chelmsford High School Field Hockey Coach Maura Devaney is looking forward to starting fresh this year with a lot of talented underclassmen.

Although the talented seniors from last year will be missed, Devaney said her team is willing to put in enough hard work to become the team to beat this year.

Though it's still too early to know the key players for this year's team, Devaney pointed to senior Alanah Busby, who is a team captain and "a very, very fast, dymantic player."

The team's specific goals go beyond wins and losses, she said.

"Winning is certainly a goal, and this group of seniors and juniors pulling together as a team and finding a way to get it done again this year," said Devaney.

A strength of this year's team is quickness. "This year, we have a good amount of speed coming back; there's a new rule this year, which is a self pass," said Devaney, adding that self passes pick up the pace of the game, which helps the already-speedy Chelmsford team.

Before the games start, Devaney will be working with the girls to improve their skills.

"Field hockey has become predominantly a turf field game and because we don't play on a turf field, one of our goals is to find some balance so that we work on the turf skill on the grass. It's a huge difference, the game completely changes (on turf); field hockey is the one game that gets affected probably the most by playing on turf versus grass."

Probably the biggest losses to the team are the departures of Kayla MacDonald, who graduated and will play at UMass Lowell, and Samantha Pindara, who will play lacrosse at Longwood University.

Devaney is entering her 16^th year coaching field hockey and is excited about the upcoming season.

"I'd say this group is very focused and they seem to want to step up a little bit and that's going to be fun to part of," she said.

Chelmsford High School Field Hockey will hold tryouts and start practicing this Thursday at 8 a.m. at the high school.