Looking to Make History
The Stamford High School field hockey team will hold its final practice of the season tomorrow afternoon. Then it will meet at Bobby Valentine’s for its final team dinner.
Then on Saturday morning the Black Knights will face Simsbury for the state title.
With a victory they would become the first team in school history to ever win consecutive CIAC championships.
“That would mean so much,” said forward Katie Pape. “To do something no one else has ever done.”
What has been most illuminating in recent days is the way the seniors on the team have said a win this year would be even more significant, though players usually remember their first championship.
“Winning it once was excellent,” said defender Emily Powers. “To go back to back….” To win it again would mean so much.”
Last year the Black Knights finished 17-4-0-1 and were a strong team from start to finish. This year they had the potential to be just as talented, but the road proved to be long and winding.
One of the team’s key players quit toward the end of the preseason. Madi McLaughlin, who set a city scoring record last year with 26 goals, injured her knee midway through the regular season and did not regain her form until the state tournament started. Two key players were suspended for the final two games of the regular season.
Stamford headed into the state tournament with a 9-6-2 mark after going 3-5-1 in its previous nine games.
It was a situation that would have sank most teams. But the players on the Black Knights have two important qualities: talent and character. Pape said the players practiced on their own for four days between the league and state playoffs, without coach Matt Forker, and that it allowed them to bond again.
“For some reason we work better at motivating ourselves more than anyone else,” said Pape, who is one of the team’s four captains, along with Powers, McLaughlin and Laura Dembofsky. “That’s when we started to click.”
The Black Knights have always had the tools to be in their current position. It just took them a little longer than expected to realize it.
“The confidence level is high this year like last year,” Powers said. “Last year going into the final our whole season had gone well and we thought there was no way we were going to lose. This year it has been a little bit more of a roller coaster ride, a lot bumpier.”
The Black Knights have smoothed that pavement with four straight wins in the tournament, the last three coming against the No. 1, 4 and 5 seeds. Simsbury is the second seed.
“Going into the tournament we didn’t realize how good we were,” Pape said. “We thought of ourselves as average girls. That’s why we are so confident now, because we have worked so hard. We’re so excited.”
There is also something about winning a title as a senior, the players agreed, that resonates deeper. For someone like Powers, who does not play any sports, this is the final game of her high school career.
“This is it,” she said. “To go out on top would mean so much. I think because it is the last time it would mean even more.”
And the chance to make Stamford High School sports history in the process.