The Palmer Ridge Bears Girl Field Hockey Team season wrapped up in early November. They made it to the quarter final game. They sadly lost their final game. Their final win-loss-tie statistic in the league was 7-6-1 and then in Class 5A it was 8-8-1. This was the team’s first time wining a playoff game in 5 years. The team placed 607 in the national league and 7th in the district. The team has a total of 28 players varying in grade. The head coach on the team Mallory Cuccio the head coach on the team. It was good score for team so young. “I thought we did pretty well for a very young team, most of our players were sophomores or juniors so a little bit of a learning curve. But overall the team improved over the season.” said by Mallory Cuccio, the head coach on the field hockey team “We definitely grew a lot as a team.” said by Katie Miller (12), a captain on the team.

When asked what her favorite part of the season was Miller said “I think it went pretty well. We definitely grew as a team. We made it to playoffs and won our first playoff game so I think we grew team dynamic wise and skill-wise, which helped us win our first play of game “ said by Miller. Cuccio had this to say “I thought we did pretty well for a very young team, most of the players were sophomores or juniors so a little bit of a learning curb. But overall the team improved over the season.

The team made it to the quarter finals and fought hard through the game. It ended in a loss but it was still a great effort. “I thought even though we came out at a lost, I felt like the team gave it their best effort. I thought they worked the hardest that game.” said by Cuccio. Miller said she was proud of making it that far in the game. “It was amazing! In my four years of being here we have not won a playoff game yet so winning a was great even if was not the state game.”

In any sport like this it is a struggle to try to be in the best shape and be above the rest in athletic ability. So when asking what the hardest part of the season was they had this to say. “ I think it was just little bit longer then season were have been in the past. They extended the playoffs to go more into November. So it felt a little bit long getting use to that time frame.” said by Cuccio.
Miller said that the team had one mantra they told themselves over and over again. “Persevering. Keep going even in time when you lost and wait tell the next game to use to fuel to win for that next game.” Even threw the struggle of the season its still a sport meant to be a good. “I just loved how the girls came together despite how it was smaller numbers. I thought they were united as a group and they had a lot of fun even though different from years past.” said Cuccio when asked about her favorite part of the season. “…Leading the team as a captain was awesome as well cause the whole team was just amazing and growing and seeing the achievements we had threw out the season was amazing as well.” said Miller.

In the first round of playoffs Katie Miller scored the game winning goal which lead the team further into the finals. When asked about her favorite part of the winning game, Miller said that her favorite part was “Scoring the winning goal and just knowing we did it. We worked so hard to make it.”

With the end of the season and now a higher standard for what the team can accomplish, the team is ready for anything. ”I do not think [doing anything] differently, just building on what we have been establishing through the season. So just keep building on that foundation and grow from that and maybe incorporate little more advance skills, since we had that foundation now.” said Cuccio when we asked about if she will be anything different next year. When taking everything they accomplished this year they could use that as a reference for future the future players for this team can watch and see what went well and what they can improve on for themselves.

With the coming a passing of this season and now with a quarter final under their belt and finally getting a playoff win with the last one being 5 years ago, the PR field hockey team had a great season. Even though they did not make it all the way, they made it and worked really hard for everything.

The team did pretty amazing. The captains, coaches, and the team in general put a lot of work into this season ending with a huge accomplishment for PR Field Hockey Team as a whole. For all the next years coming they have big shoes to fill, but with the achievement of this last year and what the coaches and team has learned, there is no where but up from here!