HOLMDEL – Everyone knows the powers of the Shore Conference field hockey world. But for every Shore Regional or Rumson-Fair Haven, there are teams like Holmdel, who are forced to compete in the same division.
“We just know that we have our own set of goals,” fifth-year Holmdel head coach Melissa Murphy said about playing in the extremely competitive A Central division. “We know going into a game like Shore that we’re not going to beat them, but we have standards that we uphold to, and we have things like keeping our press as tight as it can be on our receptions, our passing and our corners when we get them, and even just getting corners. Just small victories every game.”
The tough competition aside, the Hornets are also a very young team this year, returning just five seniors after graduating eight a season ago.
“We have a very young team this year, but the good news is we have a lot of potential and it’s exciting to see the growth already this season,” Murphy said. “We have one freshman starting on the forward line; we have another freshman who occasionally starts on the forward line. We have a young defense with three of the four being sophomores and they are all doing a good job of filling the roles that left because we graduated eight seniors last year.”
While looking to fill those roster spots on the varsity team, Murphy says it’s more about the character of the player rather than their skill level.
“We look for potential and coachability,” Murphy said. “We tell the girls all the time their character is more important than their skill and we look for the girls with the best attitudes to put out on the field, and the skill will follow.”
Returning starters this year for Holmdel are senior center-mid Hayley Cowles, senior left-back Abbey Quirk, senior goaltender Shelley Merhav, senior right-back Kaitlyn Heyt, junior left-mid Lane Fontana, junior center-forward Natalie Grana, and sophomore Emma Quirk. Also returning off the bench is senior forward Sarah Chodnicki.
Freshman Madison Yan is a starting forward who also plays multiple positions and has stuck out to Murphy in the early going. Many players are moving around on the field as Holmdel looks to replace its departed seniors, and there are three things Murphy looks for when moving players around.
“We look for how quickly they move their feet, how well they play defense and just their field vision and their awareness of where to be in different situations is really important,” Murphy said.
While it is almost certain Holmdel will not be winning their division this season due to their inexperience and the powerhouses they are competing with, Murphy keeps a positive attitude by focusing on the individual things that she hopes will make her girls better players in the long run.
“I think it’s definitely worth saying we have a really hard division and in a situation like this, it takes a special kind of a team to show up every day and have our own wins.” Murphy said. “Our girls are really good, but they just aren’t Shore or Rumson, and it’s hard to accept that you will play three teams right off the bat where you have to mentally be really focused and just concentrate on what our team goals are instead on what the other team does.”
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