Moxie Suffers Loss Against Deerfield

Despite the rainy weather, girls’ varsity field hockey took the field against a strong Deerfield team this Saturday with hopes of another win, following a 5-0 victory against Winsor. While the team felt prepared for the challenging match-up, they failed to capitalize on opportunities throughout the game, eventually falling 0-3.

Although the girls were not able to score in this game, they still managed to generate many shots past Deerfield’s tight defense, according to coach Elizabeth Hurley. “It wasn’t like we didn’t have many shots on goal, we just weren’t able to put them in the back of the net this time around,” she said.

Many of the players agreed with their coach, and felt the score of the game was not quite representative of how it actually ended up. The team’s offense has been quite prolific in the past couple games; several players felt that slippery conditions and bad luck ultimately prevented them from scoring on Saturday.

“We never let a loss get to us. Right now we are focusing on winning our next game, and if we maintain our focus that will happen.”

On the opposite side of the field, Big Red’s defense fought hard to stifle the opposition. Lowers Michaela O’Brien and Katie Young, the team’s two goalies, both helped their team with solid performances. Exeter’s improved defensive definitely challenged Deerfield, but could not fully contain their powerful offense. Even after falling behind in points, Exeter never let up and continued to play with grit.

The defense as a whole committed several errors, but the players hope to take advantage of these mistakes and use them to improve in the future. Lower Catherine Griffin highlighted that the team “needs to work on stopping the ball when it’s coming down the sidelines.” She added, “We have been doing drills in practice to work on double teaming the ball on the sidelines.” Griffin hopes the team will be able to master this skill and pressure their opponents around the perimeter of the field in future matches.

Senior and captain Michaela Corvi remains hopeful knowing that with a few lucky bounces, Exeter could have turned the game into a whole different story. “We never let a loss get to us. Right now we are focusing on winning our next game, and if we maintain our focus that will happen,” she said. If Exeter were to rematch Deerfield, she firmly believes that the outcome would be a lot different.

Moxie’s schedule remains rigorous moving forward with two big games coming up in the next week. The girls will play Noble & Greenough at home this Saturday at 1 p.m.