DEPOSIT –– The No. 3 Marathon field hockey team couldn’t find enough offense Tuesday, as it fell 6-2 to No. 2 Deposit-Hancock in a Section VI Class C semifinal matchup at Warner Field.
Missed opportunities ended up being the story of the night for Marathon. The Olympians recorded eight shots on goal and six penalty corners, but could only muster the two goals.
“I think our confidence was lacking, where they were very confident,” Marathon head coach Karen Funk said. “I thought we took the ball up and down the field, but we didn’t capitalize on corners, which would’ve made a difference. We had the ball there, it was there in the circle. We just couldn’t finish it off. I think that was probably the key in the first half. I felt we were hesitant. Coming off at halftime with a couple of goals probably makes a big difference.”
Both teams had near misses early on, with the first quarter ending scoreless. The first strike of the game came with 6:54 to play when Sarah Gross finished off a feed from Amanda Ray. That marker gave the Eagles a 1-0 lead heading to the half.
Marathon generated several early looks to tie things up despite playing down a player for two minutes after Audrey Ensign was given a green card. The Olympians came up empty and Deposit-Hancock cashed in to extend the lead shortly thereafter. Gross set up Aubrey Smith to extend the lead to two. The Eagles seized all the momentum from there, as Gross scored her second goal of the night a couple minutes later.
Marathon seemed to have a chance to climb back, scoring with just under three minutes left in the third quarter. Delaney Reilly sent a perfect lob pass up that was deflected in by Liz Vancise. As quickly as the Olympians seemed to be back in the game, the Eagles answered with a goal with 4.5 seconds to play in the third.
Marathon cut the margin to two goals again early in the fourth on Vancise’s second goal of the night, with Catherine Newkirk picking up the assist. Only 39 seconds later, Leah Brown found the back of the net to extend the Deposit-Hancock lead again and take the wind out of the sails for good on the Marathon sideline.
“I think that’s the whole confidence thing,” Funk said. “As soon as we score it was like, ‘Okay!’ But then when they came back and scored it was like, ‘Ugh.’ So, I think the confidence is what we lacked and what they used to make it a bigger score than we wanted it to be.”
Gross finished off her hat trick in the waning moments. Ray picked up her third assist of the game on the Eagles’ final goal.
Marathon finished the season 10-8. Despite her team’s season coming to a close Tuesday, Funk was still very proud of what her group accomplished.
“Every practice they were working hard, they wanted to do more than just have a winning record,” Funk said. They wanted to be able to show in the postseason that they were still competitive. We had so many close games in the regular season and against bigger schools. There were so many games where one goal here or there would’ve made a difference. You do what you can do, but its just a terrific team to coach every day and to share so many good things with them. A special group of kids, they really are.”
