CUPERTINO — What a ride.
Four short years ago, Christopher field hockey coach Lia Peterson accepted the challenge of teaching the game to an eager bunch of freshmen. The first year didn’t go so well, the team was winless, but the second was a little better. The Cougars finished No. 1 in the Mt. Hamilton B-League in Peterson’s third year as coach and made the Central Coast Section playoffs.
In her fourth year, the success continues.
Christopher made the CCS playoffs for the second year in a row, finishing No. 2 in the B-League to earn the No. 12 seed overall (11-2-1). The Cougars were matched up with the No. 5 seeded Monta Vista to kick things off and things didn’t exactly go their way. Christopher was shutout 8-0 by the Matadors at Monte Vista Thursday night, but the score far from tells the story of the game.
Senior goalie Kyle Robinson stopped 70 percent of the shots she faced — including three out of four penalty shots. That achievement is all that much sweeter given that this is Robinson’s first season as a goalie, making the transition from forward which she played the previous three years.
“We had to keep going, we can’t just give up,” she said. “I think we held it together pretty good considering the competition and everything. …We could’ve won, but that’s OK. We left it all out on the field and we’re not leaving here regretting anything.”
Monta Vista took a 5-0 lead into halftime, one that could’ve easily been 8-0 had it not been for some stellar diving saves made by Robinson.
“I told them, my team, at the end that this is the best learning experience they could ever have,” Peterson said. “Monta Vista is just an incredible team and they’ve been strong year after year. They’ll only get better, our team will only get better for this experience which is really exciting.”
The second half was much better for the Cougars as they were able to attack the net more frequently and limit the Matadors’ scoring chances. Monta Vista has scored just once — in the 35th minute — before netting two late goals in the 58th and 59th minutes for the final.
“She (Robinson) did an awesome job and I think as the defense sort of figured their thing out and we got the right players in place, that really helped the whole thing as well,” Peterson said. “She’s an incredible athlete (and) she has trained extremely hard.”
The loss puts an end to Christopher’s season, but the Cougars weren’t hanging their heads. They will loose 12 seniors to graduation this year, but given how far they’ve come and how much they’ve developed, Peterson said it’s been quite a ride.
“It’s bittersweet because the seniors were my babies when we started and I’ve been with them for four years, so it will be sad to see them go,” she said. “My first day was ‘Hey, I played 30 years ago so this is new for all of us’. We’ve just grown together — good or bad and we’ve just chugged along. It’s fun to watch the girls play and learn and grow every day, every week and year after year.”
