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Furm's Take: Falling In Love With Field Hockey
Beth Sandowich and Liz Ziegler were overcome with emotion following Sunday's win over Rowan University. For the author, it was hard not to get swept up in the moment.
Grantham, PA — I am a field hockey moron. But I fell in love with the sport at precisely 3:07 p.m. Sunday afternoon. It was at that moment that junior Liz Ziegler flicked a little bit of magic off the end of her stick, sweeping a shot past Rowan University goal keeper Lisa Apt to send Messiah to its 12th Final Four appearance in program history. Her goal — with only 31.1 seconds remaining in the second overtime — cracked a 1-1 tie at the last conceivable moment. Sunday’s contest brought my lifetime total of field hockey games watched to a whopping 14. I’m from Indiana. I grew up playing and coaching basketball. We have plenty of fields. But we have no field hockey. At 3:07 p.m. Sunday afternoon, however, I had a sneaking suspicion that I had just watched one of the most special sporting events of my life. Being new to the sport, I wanted to be sure. So I asked around. “This was probably one of the best games, if not the best, to ever be played on this field,” Messiah head coach Jan Trapp said afterward. “We’ve had some good ones, but I can’t recall off hand any that were any better than this one.” Guess I was right. Trapp’s coached 680 collegiate field hockey games, the most ever by a human being. That’s a pretty good barometer. But even for an ignorant newbie like me, it was impossible not to get sucked into the raw emotion of Sunday’s play at Anderson Field. As if the 70 minutes of regulation field hockey weren’t enough, there were 29 minutes, 29 seconds and nine tenths of a second of overtime hockey, which is either the most exciting or insane thing to watch in all of sports. I knew something was amiss when the first overtime began. Neither team had enough players on the field! Someone alert the on-site NCAA Tournament representative! I was quickly subdued by Karen Godshall, resident team photographer and mother of Falcons’ junior defender Brittany Godshall. “They play seven against seven during the overtimes,” she said. “Everyone that’s supposed to be out there is out there.” Seven against seven? On a field 100 yards long by 60 yards wide? That’d be like playing two-on-two, full court to decide a basketball game. What was this sport thinking?!? Turns out the field hockey people knew what they were doing. Sunday’s overtime periods provided some of the most heart-stopping, gut-wrenching moments I’ve ever witnessed in any sport. With just six field players participating for each team, it was field hockey on steroids. Every intercepted pass led to a fast break the other direction, with no defenders around to slow things down. And that scenario seemingly happened every 35 seconds. Three times, I thought Messiah had lost the game. There was a shot by a Rowan forward in the first extra session that appeared destined to go in the cage, only for Messiah junior goalkeeper Ashley Mowery to fly in at the last second to preserve the season with a kick-save. Only minutes into the second OT, the Profs crossed a ball in front of Messiah’s goal, resulting in a wide-open look at the vacant net from just a few yards away. My heart plummeted, as I’m sure the tickers did in the over 500 Falcons’ fans as well. That was, until the Rowan player pushed it wide of the cage. “I think I vomited a little bit on that shot,” said Messiah junior defender Mary Hoover, who was watching from the sideline. With just 2:48 to play, I was absolutely, positively certain that the Falcons’ season was over. A foul was called on a Messiah defender inside the circle, resulting in a penalty stroke opportunity for Rowan. I had actually seen one of these in the Rowan-Trinity game the day before, so I knew what to expect: A Rowan player would stand a few inches beyond whispering distance of Mowery, and attempt to push a shot into the cage for a sudden-death victory. It was the type of thing that looked like it would go in 99,999 times out of 100,000. Only Mowery — as the remaining six Messiah players locked arms near midfield — sprang to her right to stop the shot. And I vomited a little bit. “I just tried to clear my head and focus on the ball,” she told me afterward. “My first thought when a stroke is called is, ‘Don’t screw this up.’ You can’t tense up or you’ll freeze. You just try to relax your body and focus on ball. Knock on wood, but so far that’s been working for me.” I guess. It was Mowery’s fourth penalty stroke denied in four attempts on the season. If that weren’t enough for me to take in a singular field hockey game, there were Ziegler’s heroics at the very end. The midfielder has always been a favorite player of mine, simply because she always seems to hit the ball very, very hard. (“You don’t have time to mess around in there,” she once told me.) As the clock ticked down toward zeros, Messiah had one fastbreak left in its collective tank. Ziegler took a feed from sophomore Julie Barton and began dribbling the ball down the left flank — the crowd’s increasing volume reaching a crescendo of sorts. The images that followed will long remain etched in my memory. Ziegler cut back toward the middle of the field and slapped a shot toward the Rowan goal, dropping to her knees on the follow-through. I didn’t see the shot go in, but I heard it. The thud of a ball hitting the backboard never sounded so sweet. As Messiah’s entire team rushed the field to pile on top of Ziegler, I could not take my eyes off her. Upon realizing her shot had just sent her team to the Final Four, she fell backward and starting bawling. For some reason, my own eyes began to water. Mrs. Godshall approached me moments later and asked if she could hug me. I obliged. The chance to suavely use the shoulder of her coat to wipe these oddly-placed tears off my face was too good to pass up. After the celebration had died down a bit — and Ziegler had composed herself — I asked her what drove her to such uncontrollable emotion. Why had her reaction of choice been to simply crumple on the field, instead of running around joyously, begging for her teammates to catch her? “It was just too overwhelming,” Ziegler said. “It was by far the most physically, mentally and emotionally challenging game I’ve ever played in. The complete joy of winning plus the excitement of knowing we were going on to next weekend was just too much. It was intense satisfaction and relief, all at the same time. That feeling was probably a one-time thing. I don’t know if I’ll ever experience that exact sensation again in my life.” The next thing Ziegler said served as a reminder — to me, anyway — that being part of something bigger than oneself is where the really good stuff happens. “This team as a whole has more heart and directed passion than any team I’ve ever been a part of in any sport, and I’ve been playing sports since I was six,” she said. “We are all best friends. It’s phenomenal to be on a team that shares the same goals, the same passion and wants to work toward the same thing. We love each other, we love God and we love field hockey. If you ask me, there’s no better combination for a team.” It’s certainly hard to argue with that. And win or lose in next weekend’s Final Four, I’m bringing Kleenex.
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