SARATOGA—Before the season, Christopher wasn’t sure how things would pan out. It had lost 12 players to graduation, but had a slew of young talent eager to learn the game. The question marks quickly started to fade as the Cougars came together and picked up lopsided wins all season long, ultimately leading to their third Central Coast Section appearance in three years.
Unfortunately for Christopher, its season would end here. The Cougars lost 8-1 to Saratoga in the opening round of the CCS playoffs Thursday in Saratoga.
It was an emotional loss, especially for the seniors who helped lead Christopher to an 11-4-1 overall season. Captain Jordan Evanger tried to fight back the tears after the game, but just let them fall after being honored with team’s final spirit stick—a miniature field hockey stick given to a deserving player and decorated with bows by those who have won it.
“It’s nice being a captain of such an amazing team, I’ll tell you that much,” Evanger said. “These girls, I can’t even explain it. Every practice, every game is just amazing. It’s going to be so sad. It’s senior year and we’re leaving because I love these girls to death and we just grew so close as a family.”
“Throughout the season we just grew stronger and stronger and just clicked,” she continued. “It’s hard to find that and I’m just happy that we did.”
Though the Falcons put up a crooked number on Christopher, the score doesn’t tell the whole story.
Saratoga mercilessly attacked the Cougars’ offensive zone, drawing countless corners in the game, which aided its scoring opportunities. Mackenzie Holt and Mariah Carpenter were stoic in front of the net, clearing multiple attempts to keep the pressure off sophomore goalie Kayla Ancheta—who came up with several big stops of her own in the game.
“I think we started out really strong and the things that we don’t do—the strategic moves that other teams have—became very evident fairly quickly,” Christopher coach Lia Peterson said. “They all played strong. It was just fifth (seed) against 12th (seed) it definitely makes a difference. It’s a good experience. We always hope to go one step further and we would’ve loved to play Gilroy just for fun. We just have to keep getting stronger.”
Saratoga’s Rachel Davey gave the Cougars quite a headache. She picked up a hat trick in the game and was in front of the net on almost every scoring play. Davey drew first blood, poking in a shot to the near corner off a Falcons’ corner just four minutes into the game.
Christopher’s Sherelle Butler tied it up three minutes later. She drew a penalty stroke and delivered a shot to the top shelf of Falcon’s goalie to tie the game at 1-1.
“I tricked her,” Butler said with a laugh. “I wasn’t really thinking, I was just thinking of getting it in that left corner and it just happened so I was really happy about that. At least we scored one.”
The Falcons drew another corner with 21 minutes left in the first half and flocked around the net until Abby Foss finally squeezed the ball in. Anne Rollinson added another goal that deflected just off Ancheta’s pads to improve the Falcons’ lead to 3-1. Tina Miller scored on a cross to the far side of the net to cap off Saratoga’s first half scoring.
Christopher drew back-to-back-to-back corner opportunities late in the first and Erin Mank almost got her team within a goal, but was denied by the Saratoga goalie.
“Their team is so used to coming up and they swarm the person who has the ball,” Evanger said. “We’re not used to teams like that in our league. I think it just kind of startled us. We kept calm, we didn’t freak out too much which I was really happy about.”
Davey quickly scored the first two goals of the second half for Saratoga, improving its lead to 6-1. The Cougar defense shook it off and showed great poise to silence the Falcons’ offense until the final minutes when they scored twice with under 1:30 left to play for the final.
On the other side of the ball, the Cougars put themselves in a position to score, dominating possession of the ball for a majority of the half, but were unable to do so.
“We kind of did win a way,” Evanger said. “Our team is just a huge family and I wouldn’t want to trade my teammates for anything. We played really hard and we left it all out on the field tonight—even the goalie. Despite the score I think that it was still a good game.”
Though the Cougars’ season is over, Peterson said her team has nothing to hang its heads about. They were near perfect in the second half of the season, dropping only one game to North Salinas. Christopher outscored its opponents 48-5 since playing its first home game against York on Oct. 10—a game that ended in a 10-0 shutout. Looking back to the beginning of the season, Peterson said she couldn’t be more proud of her team’s tenacity.
“As soon as we hit the turf they really started going,” she said. “It was amazing; it really was amazing to do what they did and they pulled it off. It’s just a huge group of amazing girls. I couldn’t ask for a better group of girls ever. They were just amazing, hard working and ready to take on the challenges.”
