Field hockey: Redwood continues dynasty with MCAL championship win over Tam
The unfamiliar “underdog” tag didn’t phase Redwood High in its defense of the MCAL field hockey championship.
“It felt like a game anyone could win, so I didn’t feel like we were an underdog, but it definitely felt like the game could go either way,” said Redwood junior forward Mariel Goodhart, who scored in the second quarter to help the six-time champion Giants defeat top-seeded Tam, 5-1, in Friday’s title game in Mill Valley.
The game began and ended with a few tears as both teams realized this was not only the last game of the season, but also the end of the high school field hockey experience for their seniors. As the players walked to midfield for a pregame meeting with the referees, one Tam girl was heard to say “This is our last captains meeting together.”
Tam senior Rowie Scobie, one of the most dominant players in the program’s history, said after the game, “I’m looking forward to seeing this team win the MCAL title, because I know that Tam is going to do it one day. This program is never going to stop getting better. I’m looking forward to looking back on that and seeing how far this team has came. Even if I don’t get to be a part of (the title), it’s still my field, my team.”
The Giants (17-6-3, 14-2-2 league) came into Friday’s contest with renewed confidence after Wednesday’s 2-1 semifinal win over University, the only team to beat Redwood twice this season.
“The important thing for us going into this game was to find our flow as a team,” said Lucy Jeffers, part of Redwood’s high-impact front line trio of juniors with Caitlin “KK” Titcombe and Goodhart. “I think we did that in our semifinal game against University. I think it was also important to remember that to be here is a privilege. We’ve been here the last six years now, but to make sure we’re putting all our effort and all our energy into it. I think we executed that with all our heart.”
Tam (15-2-2, 13-2-2) posted one of its best seasons in school history and advanced to the MCAL championship for the first time, but the Red-tailed Hawks were still unable to beat their rivals from Larkspur during the regular season. Redwood won the first encounter 2-0, and the second game three weeks ago ended in a scoreless tie.
“We’ve had a lot of years of being the underdog and kind of joking that Tam wasn’t a ‘feel lucky’ place, but Tam has always been a ‘feel lucky’ place,” Scobie said. “This year, I think we found that belief in ourselves, and it really showed we have a team of girls who would do anything for each other. Even through hard losses and great wins, we never stopped believing that we deserve to be here at the championship.”
Sarah Cormier, Tam’s leading scorer this season with 15, scored Friday’s first goal midway through the first quarter with an assist from Scobie, the team’s leader in points (36). That was the only ball to get past Redwood sophomore goaltender Eva Layton, who had eight saves in the game.
“We know teams can come back from a one-goal deficit. … We continued going hard, continued pushing to get another goal,” said Scobie, who has committed to play lacrosse at Northwestern University. “We ran into some unlucky calls, which changed the mindset a little, but we never stopped working. We never stopped trying.”
It took just 5 minutes for Jeffers to equal the score when she snared a loose ball in the crease and powered it into the far corner of the net. Jeffers finished the day with two goals and two assists.
“Tam scored first, but the fact that we responded so quickly and with so much momentum, that got us out of that hole immediately,” Jeffers said. “We could have let that first goal make us lose our morale, lose our momentum, but we responded so quickly with that tying goal and the next goal that it just got us right back in the flow.”
The drama mounted as Redwood set up for a penalty shot with no time left on the clock at the end of the first quarter. Lucy Tonderys put the ball in play for Jeffers to get the pass to Titcombe for the winning goal.
“We did have a lot of pressure, because this is our sixth year going into the MCAL championships,” Titcombe said. “I felt kind of stressed going into this game, but I knew that we had the energy in us. I knew that we could do it.”
Goodhart extended the Giants’ lead with 17.5 seconds left in the second quarter when she jabbed the ball through traffic in front of the net to find her mark.
Forward Jane Broderick, one of nine seniors on the youthful Redwood roster, was in the right place at the right time in the third quarter when she got her stick on the ball in a crowded crease to sneak it past Tam goaltender Larkin Archibald, who faced 16 shots in the game.
Jeffers closed out the scoring with a 1-on-1 challenge against Archibald in the final 5 minutes of the game. Tam was unable to get the ball out of their zone against a tough Redwood front line. The Giants sent the ball toward the Hawks’ net, where Jeffers was waiting.
“We have the talent, we have the sticks, we have the speed, and I think we showed that,” Jeffers said.
And, once again, Redwood has the MCAL pennant.