THE Handsworth Royals senior girls field hockey team won their first North Shore title since 1992 Monday night with a jetlagged, sleepy superstar providing the scoring punch in a 4-2 win over Carson Graham.
Grade 12 forward Hannah Haughn spent most of October with Canada's national field hockey team, playing significant minutes for the team as they battled to a fourthplace finish at the Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico. Team Canada played the bronze medal game Oct. 29. Two days later Haughn touched down at the Vancouver Airport at 1: 30 p.m. and headed straight to Rutledge Field for the North Shore final, starting at 3 p.m.
After hugging her teammates and telling her coach she hadn't slept much for the past 30 hours, Haughn warmed up and subbed into the game with the score tied 0-0. An hour later the score was 4-2, Haughn had scored three goals and had another shot deflected in by teammate Steph Norlander and the Royals were North Shore champions.
"I'm just excited to be back and be home," Haughn said after the game. She and teammate Kendra Perrin have been on the senior team since Grade 9 and have come close to winning North Shore titles before but have always fallen short against powerhouse teams from West Van and Carson.
"It's nice to see that all our hard work has been paying off," said Haughn. "It's pretty awesome. We've been working towards this for four years and to finally get it is pretty great."
Handsworth head coach Paul Winstanley said that Haughn - a co-captain along with Grade 12 midfielders Perrin and Kylie Nabata - provided the team with a big boost when she showed up just before game time.
"(She) came straight from the airport and was bouncing along and full of energy," he said. "As soon as she got on she affected the game."
The great thing for Handsworth and the scary thing for the rest of the province is that the Royals were doing just fine without Haughn. They won the prestigious Bridgman Cup and then finished first in the stacked North Shore league while Haughn was in Mexico. Haughn may have scored the decisive goals against Carson on Monday but Winstanley credited his powerful midfield, led by Perrin and Nabata who have both played at the junior national level, for controlling the game.
"I think our midfield with Kendra and Kylie is so strong that they've generally controlled every game that they've played," he said. "We've done so well without (Hannah) and everyone else has stepped up so having her was just that little extra."
All that's left now for the Royals to win is the provincial tournament running Nov. 8-11 in Kelowna. Handsworth will go in ranked No. 1 but they'll be battling strong teams - Carson and West Van are ranked third and fourth - as well as their own history. The Royals have been a mainstay at the provincial tournament the past decade but they've only cracked the top four once in that time and the team has never won a provincial title.
If the Royals are to win their first title it will be their Grade 12 core of Haughn, Perrin, Nabata and defender Amanda Watson who will lead the way, said Winstanley, adding that the team is also stocked with a strong group of younger players following their captains' lead.
"We're very skilled and we've got really good leadership - the four Grade 12s are really special," he said. "Those four really pull the team along. They wont accept defeat and they just work extremely hard. . . . They just refuse to give up."
One more scary note for the rest of the province: despite scoring a hat trick and setting up another in the North Shore final, Haughn said she's got a lot more than that to give.
"I played pretty well considering I didn't have much sleep but it wasn't really my best," she said Monday. "I'm looking forward to provincials to bring it up a notch."
