The Collingwood Cavaliers senior girls field hockey team is heading back to the AA provincial championships searching for gold.
The Cavaliers, a perennial powerhouse, hosted the championship tournament last season and were in the mix for top spot but lost a heartbreaking semifinal before rebounding to finish third. A medal of any colour is never anything to frown upon, but the 10 players who returned for this season are intent on turning that bronze into gold when they take on the province's best next weekend at Southern Okanagan secondary in Oliver.
"We felt as coaches that we did really, really well last year winning bronze, but we were also right there with the silver and gold medals," said Ashleigh Gold, Collingwood co-coach along with Sara Bruner and Catherine Underwood. "It could have gone either way, but we ended up with bronze. We were really proud of the way the girls fought through that and we felt that the bronze medal match is always a really hard one to win, so coming out with a medal in that match was fantastic. But yes, we're looking to beat that this year."
The Cavaliers have played like championship contenders all year, going undefeated on the North Shore in a run that included a 4-1 win over Rockridge in the North Shore AA final Thursday. The Cavaliers had already beaten the Ravens in three previous meetings but Collingwood was expecting, and received, Rockridge's best shot.
"(Rockridge) came out really, really strong and our girls responded very well to that," said Gold.
By halftime the score was 4-0 Collingwood and, while Rockridge mounted a mini-comeback in the second half, the victory was never in doubt.
"It was good to see," said Gold. "We didn't play complacent, we played knowing that it was a big game and knowing that our girls had to step up their game in order to be successful. It's harder sometimes when you play a team so many times and you've beaten them each time to then get up for a game like this because you feel like you'll win anyways, but we were able to do that and we were proud of them."
The Cavaliers will go into this year's provincials ranked No. 2. They'll be led by Grade 12 goalie Lauren Johnston, bound for Princeton next year, and Grade 11 midfielders Rachel Spouge and Hailey Szybunka, two players who have been on the team since being called up for the provincial championships when they were in Grade 9, the last Collingwood team to take home gold.
"They've been fantastic leaders and really strong players on the field," said Gold of her two midfield anchors. Grade 12 forward Kyla Jarrar, an elite tennis player, also brings a lot of experience to the field hockey pitch, having played on the senior team since her Grade 9 year.
When they get to Oliver the Cavaliers will face several tough opponents, but two obstacles stand out above the rest. The first is Crofton House, the No. 1-ranked team and the only AA opponent to have knocked off Collingwood this season. The teams have played twice with Crofton House coming out on top both times by identical 1-0 score lines.
The other big obstacle the Cavaliers will face will not stand in front of them but rather lie below them. The Cavaliers — like most teams in the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island — are used to playing on artificial surfaces but this tournament will be played on real grass.
"Grass is quite an equalizer," said Gold. "It's slower, more unpredictable. When you go to pull the ball left or right or to do a spin move or to pop the ball up, the ball just doesn't respond in the same way.... These girls are fantastic on turf and they have very good field hockey skills when we put them on turf, (but grass) handcuffs those moves that they would regularly do."
The grass adds an extra wrinkle to the tournament but the Collingwood coaches think they can still come out on top.
"We're going in with excitement, with confidence, but at the same time a little bit of uncertainty because it's not our style of play," said Gold about the grass game. "(We're) hoping to be in the final and successful in the end."
