Sachem Field Hockey Erupts for Four Late Goals to Shutout Ward Melville [Photos]

Sachem East struck quick and often in the second half, breaking open a scoreless game with four goals in eight minutes to secure a 4-0 victory over Ward Melville in field hockey on Tuesday afternoon.

It was a matchup between two of the top programs in Suffolk county and a rematch of last year’s county championship game.

“I think when you have two good teams playing against each other any leeway that you give – things like that could happen and they took advantage of it,” Ward Melville coach Shannon Watson said.

The game was scoreless at the half, with Sachem East getting the better of play but neither team doing enough to jump out ahead. Ward Melville came out in the second half and swung momentum, creating good scoring chances throughout the first twenty minutes.

“In the second half I think Ward Melville came on strong and it’s their home field so obviously I knew that was going to happen,” Sachem East coach Tina Moon said. “There was a point there where it could have gone either way, they definitely stepped up.”

But the Flaming Arrows made sure it would go their way, starting its scoring barrage with 12:31 left in the game. Karyn Ryan banged in a rebound to open the scoring and on the next rush down the field Cara Trombetta found the back of the goal – just 19 seconds later – to put Sachem up by two.

Those goals came just after Moon had called timeout to try and settle down her team.

“I think we were getting a little frazzled,” she said. “If you don’t score quickly and fast after a whole half goes by and you know you’re dominating I think it gets a little mental. I wanted to slow their momentum down by calling a timeout and tell them they need to relax and regroup. We changed some positions and our team responded to that.”

Sachem grabbed every last bit of momentum when Meghan Coope scored six minutes later for a 3-0 lead and Courtney Hallick added the icing on the cake with 4:35 remaining.

The two teams will meet again on October 14 at Sachem and if history repeats itself, in the playoffs in November. But neither coach was looking that far ahead.

“It feels good,” Moon said. “We’re going to enjoy today and be focused tomorrow and be ready to work on what we need to work on.”