By TIM TAYLORTioga County Sports Report
OWEGO — The Owego field hockey team is bringing in big numbers this season, but will have plenty of youth on its roster.
“We have 33 between JV and varsity,” said coach Ashlee Marsh. “We went to our coaches meeting Monday night and were one of three schools with a full JV team in our section, so it's us Vestal, and Greene. Our numbers are looking very good.”
“We're pretty young this year. With our great numbers and all of our summer workouts in summer league iIt was nice. We kind of got a head start at seeing each of the girls' different skill levels, so we definitely have some young athletes that'll be joining us on varsity this year, but we're excited about that to go along with some of our more seasoned veteran players.”
With the youth, Marsh will have plenty to work on with her charges.
“One of the things that we're going to focus on with some of the younger players is putting what we did this summer and in summer league onto the big field,” she said. “Our summer league, we play on a small field that's 7v7, so just taking that and making the field bigger and working on where the ball should be and those types of things, and getting them used to working with different players,” she said.
Owego went 6-10 overall last season, falling in the Class B semifinals to powerhouse Vestal.
Three of the team’s five all-star selections graduated.
The River Hawks return to Division II while the other Tioga County teams are in Division III. Of course, division alignments don’t really mean much.
“Division doesn't really mean a whole lot to us anymore in our schedule because we play everybody once,” Marsh said.
Owego opens the season Thursday night at Maine-Endwell.
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IN PHOTO 1: Owego has a big roster this season. IN TOP PHOTO: Ashlee Marsh will work to get the River Hawks back into the playoffs. … PHOTOS BY TIM TAYLOR.
