by John Osborn ·
Friday, September 13, 2024
Win one, lose one.
The Bromfield field hockey team won its first game of the season 4-2 in a nonleague match at home against the North Brookfield Indians on Friday, Sept. 6, only to lose its first Midland-Wachusett D League game against Narragansett Regional 2-0 the following Monday.
The North Brookfield match offered fans a first look at the 2024 Trojans. The team has a new coach, Miki Fitzgibbons, who coached the junior varsity Trojans in 2023. With the retirement of longtime coach Sue Silver and a decision not to field a JV team this season, Athletic Director David Boisvert told the Press it made sense for Fitzgibbons to step up to the position of head coach.
Led by senior co-captains Hannah Murphy, sidelined by an injury, and Amanda Smith, the 21 players on this year’s roster include eight juniors, nine sophomores, and two freshmen.
The team is coed for a second year, with sophomore Anthony Cianfichi once again playing a key role on offense. Cianfichi scored twice in the game’s final quarter, each time assisted by sophomore Hannah Huelin. First to score for the team, however, was sophomore Tess Dirstine with a shot to the weak side of Indian goalie Bree Hutchison on a penalty corner in the first quarter. Huelin was responsible, unassisted, for the team’s fourth goal in the fourth quarter, also scoring on a corner play.
Coed field hockey is no longer the rarity it once was. While boys are typically not allowed to participate on a girls field hockey team, Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association rules state that if a school does not offer a boys team, boys may request to play on the girls team.
North Brookfield’s starters included three boys. Was that intimidating? “It was fine,” said junior Emerson Baker after the game. She was worried at the start, she said. “But then they played, and I was like, ‘Oh, they’re nice.’ I really liked playing with them; I would play with them again.” Junior center midfielder Anna Selig agreed. “They were professional. They were respectful,” she said.
As is often the case in field hockey, penalty corners mattered in the North Brookfield game. A corner is awarded when a defending player commits a foul within the shooting circle or commits a deliberate foul within 25 yards of the goal. Corner plays led to three Bromfield goals and to both of North Brookfield’s.
“In practice we do corner, corner, corner,” Fitzgibbons told the Press. “Every corner is an opportunity,” she said. By that standard, the Trojans had plenty, awarded nine compared to five for the Indians.
With a win and a loss, the Trojans are fourth among the six teams of Mid-Wach D. The team was scheduled to play fifth-place Tahanto on Wednesday, Sept. 11. Fourteen games remain until the season ends in late October.