Field Hockey: Ossining Preparing For Season

There are a lot of things that a group of teenage girls could be doing on a beautiful summer evening. Most probably wouldn’t opt to play field hockey.

However, the girls on the Ossining field hockey team want to make sure that they are as prepared as possible for this upcoming fall season. Thus, the Pride is competing this summer in the Hudson Valley Summer Field Hockey League at Putnam Valley High School.

Senior goalie Grace Lombardi, who will be one of Ossining’s captains in the fall, said participating in this league is very important. “We want to get ready for this season,” Lombardi said. “We have some new girls coming up and we want to really build our team up for the fall.”

Ossining senior defender Taylor Hall agreed with Lombardi. “It’s important to play in the summer league so you can be better prepared for the regular season,” Hall said. “We are going to have a good season, we just need to practice a lot with each other during the summer.”

Taking part in the league, run by five-time state champion Lakeland coach Sharon Sarsen, is Lakeland Green, Harrison, Walter Panas, Yorktown, Carmel White, Ossining and John Jay-East Fishkill (Pool A) and Pleasantville, Mahopac, Horace Greeley, Pawling, Hendrick Hudson, Putnam Valley, Lakeland Gold and Carmel Red (Pool B).

Besides the above high-school league, there is also an open division of six teams. League play started July 7 and goes through August 11, which is the night of the championship game.

Lombardi feels that when it comes to getting ready for this year, Ossining couldn’t be in a better summer league. “We are definitely getting the best competition,” Lombardi said. “We are getting to play high-level competition that we would be getting in the fall so it’s definitely setting up the standard that we are going to have to live up to during the season.”

Lombardi feels that the team is heading in the right direction already because of the work ethic it is showing during the summer months on the Putnam Valley turf Monday and Thursday evenings. “It’s good that all the girls on this team are committed,” Lombardi said. “We are just trying to keep that commitment going as we head into the regular season.”

Ossining remembers very well how last season’s postseason ended, when as the No. 8 seed it lost to visiting No. 9 Yorktown 2-1 in overtime in the opening round of the Section 1 Class A tournament.

That serves as plenty of motivation to play during the summer months. “That loss motivates us a lot because we want to do better than how we finished last year,” Hall said. “We know we can do even better if we try and that loss is just going to make us stronger for this season because we really do want to do even better this year.”

Joining Lombardi and Hall on this year’s summer-league squad are Molly Malone, Alison Corrigan, Jacqueline Lia, Zoe Fendrich, Kelsey Fendrich, Alyson Winter, Olivia McDonald, Elly Perlowitz, Sam Tighe, Camilla Hagerman, Emma Honcharski, Abby Kamen, Courtney Lees and Olivia Adams.