Woburn Beats Melrose 2-0 in Field Hockey

With the late afternoon sun dipping over Pine Banks Park, the Melrose Red Raiders hosted the Woburn Tanners in a Middlesex League varsity girls field hockey match Wednesday, with Woburn emerging victorious 2-0.

With Melrose and Woburn having each dropped their first two games of the season to the same teams, Belmont and Lexington, Wednesday's match was an early test for the young Red Raiders.

The Melrose team that made it to the state tournament last year graduated 10 seniors. This year's squad has only one senior, captain midfielder/forward Sarah Ghozayel.

Woburn jumped out to a 1-0 lead with an aggressive, attacking offense. Melrose looked sluggish at the start, but the constant chatter between the forwards kept the teams spirits up through the early struggles.

The holes in the defense may have been a result of Melrose's game plan, according to Coach Stacey Brown.

"We weren't as defensive as we were in our first two games," Brown said. "I wanted an offensive game … with a lot of cutting."

Though the teams played to a stalemate the remainder of the first half, the referees were certainly busy. Constant stoppages of play, mostly due to high sticking, marred the first half.

Melrose kept it close thanks to junior goalie Sophie Platcow, who held the Woburn lead to one with a nice save in the waning minutes of the first half.

Though Melrose came out with good energy to open the second half, the result was the same as in the first. Allowing an early Woburn goal, the Red Raiders quickly found themselves down 2-0.

The goal seemed to invigorate the girls. A rejuvenated attack, led by junior captain Olivia Dragos and sophomore Lindsay Bright, Melrose had a bevy of solid scoring opportunities.

Though they were unable to find the back of the goal, Melrose never got frustrated and kept up the attack.

It seemed to sum up their day when, on a breakaway down the right side, Melrose executed a perfect centering pass from the corner, only to have nobody in the middle to finish the play.

After another nifty save from Platcow, the Red Raiders almost scored off of a set piece from the right corner only to see the ball get knocked away in front of the goal.

The girls from Melrose got stronger as the game went on and had their finest scoring opportunities as time dwindled.

Bright, taking it right up the middle by herself, had a good rush at the net in the last minute but was denied.

Although Melrose was defeated, "this was the best game I've seen them play," Brown said afterwards. "I'm proud of them. You can see they really wanted it." This was evidenced by the fact that, though outscored, Melrose led in corners 9-7.

During the week, Brown had each of the girls write down their personal and team goals for the season and she was happy to see them progress towards one them.

"Today we connected the lines instead of playing as individual units," said Brown.