Field Hockey: Pleasantville Prepares for Season

Teams that wait until August when high school fall sports practice officially starts can be well behind the eight ball in getting ready for the upcoming season.

That is why Pleasantville is competing this summer in the Hudson Valley Summer Field Hockey League at Putnam Valley High School. Pleasantville started its season off in league competition with a 6-1 loss to Mahopac Thursday night.

The league is run by the dean of Section 1 coaches, Lakeland boss Sharon Sarsen, the winner of five state championships, including the last two in Class B. She is also the long-time coach of the highly successful Hudson Valley Empire States squad.

Pleasantville fourth-year coach Kristen Coffey, a 2000 graduate and former standout for the Panthers, knows a thing or two about coaching legends. She played for one during the high-school season, the coach she wound up replacing when she retired, Rosemary Sotherden, plus also played for Sarsen on Hudson Valley.

“Field hockey is a close-knit community,” Coffey said.

It’s a community that comes together every summer at Putnam Valley. The other teams in the league are Lakeland Green, Harrison, Walter Panas, Yorktown, Carmel White, Ossining and John Jay-EF (Pool A) and Mahopac, Horace Greeley, Pawling, Hendrick Hudson, Putnam Valley, Lakeland Gold and Carmel Red (Pool B).

In addition to the high school league, there is an open six-team division.

Coffey said there are numerous reasons why her squad makes the trip north to practice. Coffey is entering her fourth year coaching the team and all four years they have prepared for the upcoming season competing in this league.

“The competition in this league is very good, the squads that are up here are and knowing that Sars is running it, probably the best coach in the section,” Coffey said. “She organizes it so well. She really gets some good competition and it’s very good league to be in to get these kids starting off for the preseason.”

While her squad lost its opener, Coffey said it’s not about wins and losses during the summer.

“It is a way to get the kids together and working out,” Coffey said. “It’s a way to figure out what skills they need to keep working on and it’s just getting kids together to create some sort of rapport with one another.”

That is extremely important, especially when you have a young team like Coffey has. She has a lot of ninth and tenth graders who never played varsity before so in light of that, this league is a good opportunity for them to see what there is to come about.

“A lot of those kids are not necessarily on the varsity squad this year,” Coffey said. “It just so happens I opened it up to both the JV and varsity so this way these kids can have something to do, practice together and who knows, some of these kids by doing this might outshine some of the older kids and could possibly be on the varsity squad.”

Coffey thought that despite the loss, playing Mahopac was a good experience for her team that can make them only better as the summer goes along. Scoring in the second half for Pleasantville was Alex Osmak with Anne Horton on the assist, cutting Mahopac's lead to 5-1 with 7:54 to play.

“That was our goal come the second half was just to get a goal and then for each one of the players to think of some goal to accomplish individually,” Coffey said. “But that was our team goal as far as the second half, was to score.”

Coffey said Osmak and Caitlin Hughes are leaders in the making for the team, who played against Mahopac, plus Amanda Nowacki and Jackie Pfieffer.

“They are four seniors that are coming back on the squad since they were 10th graders,” Coffey said. “I am relying a lot on them to create an atmosphere for the young kids since we only have nine returning varsity players.”