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Sports

Field Hockey Update: Win Over Lyman Hall, 4-0.

Coach Sara Hale: "It was a total team effort that enabled us to capitalize on our scoring opportunities and put our shots into the Lyman Hall net."

Sam Testa knocked in two goals to lead the Amity field hockey team to a 4-0 Southern Connecticut Conference victory over Lyman Hall last Friday afternoon. Testa’s first score came with 22 minutes, 40 seconds gone in the first half and was set up by a feed from Jess Krieger. It would be the only goal of the first half.

The Lady Spartans added second half scores from Danielle Leibowitz (unassisted at 14:25), Stephanie Esposito (unassisted at 22:28), and Testa again (unassisted at 28:33).

According to Coach Sara Hale, “It took us a while to get going but once we did get going, we really turned on our offensive attack. It was a total team effort that enabled us to capitalize on our scoring opportunities and put our shots into the Lyman Hall net.”

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Amity outshot the Trojan stickers 13-2. Lady Spartan goalie Hannah Bercovici needed to make only two saves as she recorded her first shutout of the season. Lyman Hall netminder Danielle Cossette recorded nine saves.

On Saturday morning, the Black and Gold dropped a 4-0 non-conference decision to Fairfield-Warde. The match was played on the Mustangs’ artificial turf field, which Hale explained makes the game move much faster.

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She added, “We had never played or practiced on a turf field and we had a hard time getting adjusted to it. We were outshot 39-3 and Warde had 23 corners, but we did have our offensive opportunities. We threatened but never were able to push the ball into the net.”

Bercovici had a busy match as she was called on to make 30 saves.

Hale said, “Warde was quicker than us and they passed the ball better than we did. We also were our own worst enemy. I can’ remember how many penalties we got for hitting the ball off our own feet.”

Amity hosted Hand on Tuesday in an SCC battle that was played in pouring rain and the Tigers recorded a 4-1 victory. With that setback, the Lady Spartans saw their overall record dip to 3-5. While her team lost, Hale was very pleased with its effort against Hand.

“This was the best we have played as a team,” she said. “We communicated well and were moving nicely. We’re reaching a point where we know where to expect each other to be and we are picking up on each other’s moves. The final score doesn’t represent how well we played against Hand, which is a very strong defensive team.”

The Tigers’ Shaelin Gottick opened the scoring when she found the net with 20 minutes, 14 seconds left in the first half.  At 13:39 Ali Kramer gathered in a pass from Katie Becker and knocked it home. The score remained tied at 1-1 until Kendall Daub put Hand on top as she scored with only 52 seconds left in the first half. Gottick added another goal at 28:13 and Brenna Hobin closed out the scoring with 5:36 to go in then match.

The Tigers (now 4-2-1) outshot Amity 13-4. Bercovici stopped nine shots.

Hale lauded the efforts of Kramer, Alicia Cardella, and Leibowitz, whom she felt moved the ball well and made a big difference in the team’s play.

Amity returns to action on Thursday when it hosts Sheehan in a 3:45 p.m. match.    

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