Deacons fall just short of championship game
By Jim Gleitman
Old Gold and Black Reporter

It offered as much drama as Hamlet and kept its observers anxiously on the edge of their seats. It was just one of those games that had it all. In fact there is not much more one could ask from the Final Four Field Hockey matchup between the Deacs and the Maryland Terrapins that had been referred to as “the Championship game.” However, in the end it was the Terrapins that got the best of the Deacs for the third time this season with a 3-2 double-overtime victory in Kent, Ohio, on Nov. 17 in the semifinals of the NCAA Field Hockey Tournament.

With less than a minute remaining in the second overtime, Maryland’s Colleen Barbieri scored her second goal of the game to give the Terps the thrilling double-overtime win over the Deacs. The Deacons finished their season with a record of 16-5, while Maryland moved to 20-3. Maryland would fall to Princeton in the final game.

Like clockwork, the Deacs got on the board first when junior Maria Whitehead found a rebound and put it in the net with a diving shot, less than seven minutes into the game. Maryland tied the score at 1-1 when Rachel Hiskins scored from the short corner. The Deacons got back on top with 16:52 to play in the first half when Whitehead and junior Heather Aughinbaugh set up a corner for sophomore Kelly Doton, who drove the ball into the goal to give the Deacons a 2-1 advantage.

Through the second half, the Deacs maintained their one-goal lead and appeared to be headed to their first national championship game. However, with 6:38 remaining, Maryland’s Dina Rizzo found Barbieri for the game-tying score.

“Sometimes you feel down after a goal like that, but I really felt like we were okay and we would get it done,” sophomore Lucy Shaw said. “I just kept thinking, ‘Keep going, don’t let up.’”

The teams ended up going into a 15-minute, seven-on-seven, sudden-victory overtime — and played 15 minutes of scoreless hockey. The teams began another 15-minute overtime and it appeared that the game would have to be decided by penalty strokes, but with 57 seconds remaining in the second overtime period, Rizzo again found Barbieri, who found the net, and Maryland advanced to play for their fourth national championship.

“In some ways I was trying to watch the clock, but with about a minute left they penetrated our defense and I was just trying to focus on the game,” Shaw said. “I was not really thinking about going into strokes, but rather to continue playing hard.”
The team loses a large part of their foundation with seniors Jemima Cameron, Jennie Shelton and Katie Kubic all graduating. However, don’t think the Deacs won’t be back to center stage as the stars on this team will only get better and Head Coach Jennifer Averill has proven to be more than adequate at recruiting the nation’s top talent to Winston-Salem.

“A lot of other teams lose their big stars as well, so as hard as it is to lose our seniors we should be able to continue to compete with the other powerhouses,” Shaw said. “In addition we have great players who are constantly improving and will step up their play next year to give us the depth we need.”

This season came to a disappointing finish, but not before the Deacs managed to accomplish some amazing feats. They knocked off North Carolina, a top-5 team all season, three straight times. They also won 13 of their last 15 games, and most importantly, made their second consecutive appearance in the Final Four.
“Last season was great as we accomplished our goal of making it to the Final Four,” Shaw said. “But this season was even better as we were far more dominant even though we wanted to win it all.”

Losing to Maryland three times on the season is not something the Deacs are proud of, but it will definitely serve as motivation in the off-season and give this team the added incentive it needs when they begin competition again next fall.
“I think the end of this season really left us hungry,” Shaw said. “There is no way I am graduating without doing everything I can do to get one of those rings.”