By TIM TAYLORTioga County Sports Report
OWEGO — Owego’s field hockey program is experiencing its best growth since Ashlee Marsh was named the head coach in 2020.
“The best we've ever had since we've been coaching,” Marsh said, making note of assistant Brianna Prince who has been a big part of the coaching staff. “We are one of three schools in Section IV that have full varsity, full JV, full modified teams. We have 17 varsity, 14 JV, and right now, 13 modified signed up.”
From veteran to newcomer, the River Hawks’ varsity experience level runs the course.
“We're spread out across the board,” she said. “This year, we'll have three eighth graders on varsity. We tested three girls up from modified this year, and they'll start for us on the varsity team. We have six seniors, and then some sophomores and juniors mixed in too.”
Several of the players honed their skills in the off-season by playing in Binghamton and at workouts at the school.
“We did the league at the dome, and then twice a week, we offered (two-hour) workouts for grades six through 12,” Marsh said. “Normally, because it's through our summer enrichment, we have a week or two off before preseason, but because we were getting almost 30 kids at every workout, we decided to continue it right up until preseason started.
Preseason practices are focused on areas like stick skills and seeing how the girls meshed together.
“This will be the first time that we have a pretty deep bench too, so we're excited for that, so just seeing where everybody fits best,” the coach said. “At our scrimmage next week, we're going to kind of see what we need to adjust and then go from there.”
In a section which boasts two state champions in Vestal and Whitney Point, and several other top programs, Marsh hopes her team will be competitive.
“I think we're going to be solid across the board, but Ashleigh Steele, we're looking at her to kind of lead our midfield line, be the glue. Our goalie (Ava Leonard) took the year off last year because she was in the foreign exchange program, so she's coming back. Um, she measures very well.
“And then we're gonna be looking for our 8th graders to put the ball on the goal, which can sometimes be our biggest struggle. So
Owego moved to Division 2 this season and will be grouped with teams out of the area, however, they will play each of the other 14 teams in the section at least once.
The River Hawks will scrimmage Newark Valley Tuesday, then open Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. at home against Tioga.
——————
PHOTOS BY TIM TAYLOR.
