Our Senior Field Hockey Angels were all business on a beautiful Monday afternoon in their Sea to Sky Zone Championship Quarter Final game with Sentinel Secondary. Playing in the strongest Zone in the province, the win for LFA clinched them one of the five berths at the Provincial Championships in early November in Victoria, BC.
With Emma and Claire having to sit out this critical game due to injury, the rest of the team knew it was their moment to step up. While contributions were made all over the pitch, perhaps none mores than Bea, who was rock solid in the middle of the pitch. Whether with Amy, Eva or Michaela, Bea helped control the middle on the attack and was relentless in her defending.
While Sentinel struggled under the LFA press and were caught out by our ball movement, they have potent skill and always looked ready to counter on LFA. With that in mind, the first goal was key... but it was slow coming. The first quarter played to a draw. It was only when Michaela dug deep to chase down a loose ball that opportunity presented itself. Charlotte joined the play and swept a wicked pass into the heart of the D. Sienna F picked it up under pressure, spun and slotted the goal home. A deserved but relieving 1-0 lead.
Eventually the pressure resulted in short corners and LFA's short corners remain potent. Amy is the linchpin, making sure each play takes advantage of the defending weaknesses. Sure enough, the goals came on short corners. A lovely give and go went to Amy from Michaela to put us up 2-0. Then Eva deftly deflected a rocket, perfectly placed by Sienna F to put our Angels up by 3. Then, a moment of lovely skill from Sentinel's central back drove home a reply from the challenger at the end of the third quarter.
The goal could have struck nerves with LFA, but they responded with resolve and came out to finish the task in Quarter 4. Michaela took a stunning feed where we swung the play and drove into the D: with her head up, she found the narrowest of gaps to give us some insurance. As it turned out, AnnYee would drive a lovely sweep off of another short corner that was clinically deflected by Amy into the roof of the net. 5-1.
LFA were a display of relentless work and team hockey today. They are back at it on Wednesday at noon in West Van, where they play the Zone Semi Finals. Regardless of results going forward, LFA have booked their spot at Provincials, giving the girls a great adventure to look forward to.