On Thursday, September 15, the Stockton Ospreys Field Hockey team had a home game versus the Gwynedd-Mercy Griffins. We arrived at the field a little over an hour before the game and met as a team in the trailer. Once Coach Andre came in and gave us our pre-game speech, we knew we were ready to play.

A couple minutes later we took the field for warm-ups. Warm-ups take about 40 minutes and once that buzzer went off, we were ready to take the field. We get in line and follow the refs out to the center of the field. Then, they announce the starting line-ups for both teams. While they play the National Anthem, we stand front to back holding the hand of the person in front and behind us, to demonstrate that we are one team. Then we run back to the bench and it was time to start the game.

The first half was a battle; both teams had multiple opportunities to score. Unfortunately, the Griffins were first to get a point on the board. We never gave up because we are a team full of heart. We kept pounding on their doorstep, but the ball couldn’t find their cage. Gwynedd-Mercy scored again to make it a two goal deficit going into the second half. They outshot us 17-5 through the first half. During halftime, Coach talked to us about what we were doing wrong and how to fix it. We knew the game wasn’t over and we could still win.

At the start of the second half the Griffins were playing more physical, but it didn’t bother us. About 10 minutes into the second half, Jenny scored to make it 2-1. At that moment we knew we were going to win this game. We were dominating this half, and with two minutes left in the game one of their players received a yellow card, which means she had to sit out for eight minutes and her team was a man down. Less than a minute later, we scored to tie up the game. Then the buzzer sounded and we were heading into overtime. A week before this, we also had a game that went into overtime and we won it less than two minutes in and we knew this game was going to end the same way. We scored only 2 minutes in. As soon as we heard the ball hit the back of the cage, we charged onto the field and congratulated Suzie, the goal scorer.

After the game, we knew that nothing could stop us and if we keep our head in the game we can and will do anything.