The Handsworth Royals narrowly edged out the West Vancouver Highlanders to claim the North Shore senior girls AAA field hockey title Monday at Rutledge Field.
The 2-1 win was typically tight for the two North Shore teams, who split their league games, winning one each by identical 3-2 scores, and finished the regular season separated by one point in the standings.
On Monday the Royals came out hard, jumping to a 2-0 lead in the first half, but West Van battled back to make it 2-1 in the second. The Highlanders pressed hard for an equalizer right to the final whistle but couldn’t find another crack in Handsworth’s stout defensive wall.
“They were throwing everything they had at us,” said Handsworth head coach Graham Walker. “So many of the girls on those two teams are such close friends. They battle hard on the field and then they’re all super close afterwards, laughing and exchanging stories.”
There was a raucous crowd on hand that included a large section of West Van students as well as nearly the entire Handsworth senior football team.
“It’s the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen for a high school season match, other than in provincials,” said Walker. “It was loud, it was well played, it was clean. It was a fun game to be a part of.”
Both teams will now set their sights on the provincial championships scheduled for Nov. 15-17 in Richmond where they’ll be joined by the Argyle Pipers, the North Shore’s third-ranked AAA team. All of the North Shore teams will have some adjustments to make as the tournament will be played on a rubber-based turf field as opposed to the faster, slicker water-based surface of Rutledge Field, the location of most North Shore games.
“Field hockey is a very different game on a rubber-based field than it is on a water-based field,” said Walker. “It’s much more difficult to dribble, it’s much more difficult to stop and accurately pass the ball on a rubber field. And it’s much more difficult, particularly for the defence, because the ball bounces so much – it’s difficult to trap it properly. It’s a challenge for every team.”
No matter how the ball bounces, Walker said all three North Shore teams have the talent to make deep runs in the tournament.
“I would hope that the North Shore teams would all make the top-eight, into the quarterfinals,” he said. “I think they certainly have the skill level to do that. But you just never know, especially in any high school sport.”
