Gateway field hockey picks up late goals, shuts out Woodbury – NJ.com
WOODBURY – The Gateway field hockey team fired 22 shots against Woodbury, but didn’t score until the final 10 minutes.
Once it did, the goals didn’t stop.
Gateway beat the Thundering Herd, 3-0 on the road, after dominating the entire game offensively but being unable to break through to the scoresheet. With under 10 minutes to play, junior forward Kristin Freas-Papa scored the Gators’ first goal after blasting a shot dead-center of the goal.
Freas-Papa had plenty of strong shots throughout, but whether it was the post or the strong performance from Woodbury goalkeeper Ania Holland, Freas-Papa didn’t have any luck. So she kept attacking the cage.
“It just kept hitting the post and not going in, it was really stressful,” Freas-Papa said.
Then, she finally hit the back of the cage.
“I was like, it’s about time, I yelled it too, I was like, it’s about time it went in,” she said. “After so many shots and it’s just hitting the goalie, hitting the post, going out, it was just relieving.”
Two minutes later, senior McKenna Caswell scored the team’s second goal after deflecting a Woodbury pass in front of the goal. The Gators’ final goal came from senior Jessica Minniti, her sixth of the year, after receiving a pass from Lexi Thomas.
Gateway had 18 shots on goal during the second half after having only four in the first, though the team had plenty of opportunities in the first half but kept shooting off-target. Coach Amy Ambrosius told her team at halftime that it’s on them to score.
“You have the ball, you have the opportunities, there was a lot of missed opportunities on our part,” Ambrosius said. “The first half, although we didn’t have many shots, a lot of our balls didn’t even go on goal. Our shots were wide, too many wide shots.”
The Gators controlled the ball almost the entire game and gave up only one shot on goal.
“It’s hard to coach and teach them to be aggressive, you can keep saying it, but you kind of have to put it on the players and their teammates,” Ambrosius said. “Their teammates got to demand it from each other, and on the field they have to demand it from each other, and I think they did that in the second half.”
“I think we just dug deep and really put our hearts into it and really tried, we really wanted this win,” Minniti said. “We just worked together as a team, we talked, we communicated, and we just really wanted to get it done at the end of the day.”
Woodbury first-year coach Ariel Comer said she was pleased with Holland’s 11-save performance. After taking over as coach this season, Comer was informed by the team’s previous coach that she had a great goalie to work with.
“She came in and said, I don’t want to play goalie anymore, I want to play on the field, and I was like, noooo,” Comer said of Holland. “And then the first game I saw her last week, she was amazing.”
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