Field Hockey Falls to High Point

Despite her team's 2-1 loss to High Point on Tuesday, Montville High School field hockey head coach Jennifer Mulvaney was pleased with the way her team performed.

"High Point is a really good team," she said. "I'm excited that we held them to two goals. That was a good defensive effort for us. I'm proud of my kids, they played hard from start to finish."

The Mustangs have a history of playing High Point (15-0) close. Earlier in the season, the Mustangs lost to High Point 4-2 in a game that saw Montville limit the high-powered Wildcats' scoring opportunities.

Montville came out Tuesday looking strong against the Wildcats, making defensive stands on corner attempts throughout the first and second half while pressuring High Point on offense. High Point notched two goals early, but when Brook Marks scored for the Mustangs near the end of the first half, Montville looked poised for a comeback that never came, despite competitive play throughout.

Mulvaney said the team still has work to do heading into the county tournament.

"We still need to work on getting low and getting rid of the ball quickly [on defense]," she said. "We could be better at reading the defense and passing the ball offensively. We had our chances today and High Point just capitalized on theirs."

Still, overall, she was happy with how her team matched up against the Sussex County powerhouse.

"[The Wildcats} are a team that score a lot of goals, and we held them to one of their lowest scoring outputs," she said. "I'm happy with how we're playing. We're playing as a unit, and that is a good thing. I couldn't have asked for a better effort today.

Montville (3-8-3) finished the game with seven shots on goal and 13 saves, holding High Point to 15 shots on goal. Allison Koch finished the game with one assist.