LFA Claims Place at AA Provincial Field Hockey Championships

On a day with truly horrible weather, LFA was able to overcome both the opposition and the elements in a dominant performance. Playing a solid team game and working within their system, much of the pressure fell to the central midfield to contain the main STA threat while also generating our own attack. Meleah McKee '15 and Nicole Shi '18 were more than up to the task. Using each other and distributing the ball well, they were able to orchestrate all sorts of potent opportunities in the STA 25.

Meleah was able to distribute the ball consistently to Meghan Cavers '15, who was simply too much for the STA defense to contain. Wingers Olivia Graham '17 and Kiera Dumas-Wong '16 were seeing loads of the ball from Meghan and the midfield. As we swarmed the STA "d", short corners started to come our way. Grace Doyle confidently took the first and was unlucky not to find Meghan on the option through two more. Then, after some exceptional work from Shannon Litam '15 down the right side, a ball squirted free to Meghan in a prime scoring spot only to see the shot fanned. 

The attack from STA was almost exclusively from two players. The few times they were able to shake their checks, Emma Millichamp '16, Abby Lee '16 and Grace were perfect in containment. More than simply containing the opposition, they were able to dispossess the opposition and create genuinely good counter attack both through Shannon, who was simply brilliant, and through both Julie Cho '16 and Naomi Shi '18 playing on the left wide side. Still, despite the edge in control, the game remained 0-0 at half.

With the rain pouring down and starting to pool on the pitch, LFA made some critical adjustments at half time. Meghan moved back into the midfield. Keira's speed and tenacity would be critical as she moved to center forward. We made a conscious decision to pressure the STA free hits and to double team their principal threat, "#15". We also talked about pushing lobbed balls and playing the short pass rather than the big hits on the increasingly difficult turf.

The girls executed perfectly. Emma Coupal '18 came on at wing, giving us her best hockey of the season. With Keira and both Ashley Klomp '18 and Rachelle Scheepers '15, they started to run amok amongst the STA defense. Opportunity after opportunity fell to LFA. The pressure had been sustained for many minutes when they were finally rewarded with a short corner. Talking through the options at half time, Grace executed the option to Meghan perfectly. Meghan calmly deflected the ball into the net past the STA keeper who stood no chance.

Up 1-0 with fifteen minutes to go, LFA began to really put on the pressure. Ashley and Rachelle were fantastic. Creative and aggressive, we found ourselves penetrating the "d" regularly. But for the turf being so slow with wet, the opportunities might well have produced more goals. Nicole, now on the outside half, was dominant and worked with Meleah to create chance after chance. One of these left side attacks produced a wicked cross that found its way through both defenders and attackers, landing perfectly on Ashley's stick. In the "zone", there was no way Ashley was going to miss her opportunity in close on the STA keeper and she coolly slotted it home. 2-0 and the game was decided. 

The final minutes played out largely in the STA zone, with every player committed to their defensive responsibility and traffic being calmly directed by Emma and Abby at the back... while Grace maturely stepped forward to preemptively shut down several advances. Meghan and Meleah raised their games to a whole other level to shut the game down and ensure any attack generated was entirely in LFA's favour. It was a wonderful team performance that sends the Angels off to the AA Provincial Championships in Oliver, BC next week. We'll need much more of the same to have success on our biggest stage of the year.