Gettysburg field hockey clinches Division II title, sets team scoring mark
When the Gettysburg Warriors lost leading scorer Sydney Tomassini and YAIAA Division II Player of the Year Maggie Fees to graduation after their league title in 2014, they still set the lofty goal of winning Division II in 2015.
"For them, coming into the season, the girls didn't know how strong of a scoring threat they'd be," Gettysburg head coach Janelle Ebaugh said.
The answer is they would be very strong.
Gettysburg clinched the first back-to-back field hockey division titles in school history with a 5-0 win over Eastern York at Gettysburg Tuesday.
They also broke last year's single-season scoring record of 114 goals with several games left to play.
About five minutes into the game, Katelyn Gormley took a pass in the center of the circle from Haley Spangler. The senior wound up and chopped the ball over the right shoulder of goalie Emily Bodien for the record-breaking goal.
Ebaugh called timeout and the Warriors brought the ball over to her and assistant coach Joy Boden to pose for a picture.
"I just saw the ball coming and the goal was right in front of me," Gormley said. "I just took a shot, I didn't think it would go in, I was just shooting to take a shot.
"When I saw it go in, I was really happy because of what it meant to this team. I'm happy that we finally broke the record because not many teams get to score 115 goals."
The Warriors have now scored 119 goals. Gettysburg has done it by committee, with five players recording double digits in goals and assists.
One of those players, Madi Hirneisen scored a pretty goal to make it 2-0. On Gettysburg's sixth penalty corner, Gormley sent the ball to Emily Spangler, who passed to the left to Maddie Hubbard. Hubbard passed to Elena Montenegro. And Montenegro hit the ball to the back post where Hirneisen tapped it passed a stunned goalie.
After play tilted into the Eastern York end for 50 seconds, Taylor Tuhy smacked the ball clear.
The momentum changed, and Gettysburg scored off another penalty corner.
This time, Spangler took the corner from Gormley and fired a long shot between the goalie's legs.
"Penalty corners on grass are a little tricky," Ebaugh said. "The biggest thing we focused on was just finding the open player and drawing the defender."
Gettysburg allowed the ball into their half for just 11:05 of the 60 minutes in the game and is now 19-0 all time in Division II games since joining the YAIAA last season.
Gettysburg 5, Eastern York 0
Eastern York00—0Gettysburg32—5
First half — 1. Get, Katelyn Gormley (Haley Spangler), 25:12. 2. Get, Madi Hirneisen (Elena Montengro), 20:41. 3. Get, Emily Spangler (Gormley), 11:34.
Second half — 4. Get, Montenegro (Megan Miller), 10:01. 5. Get, Hirneisen (Montenegro), 9:18.
Shots on goal — EY 2, Get 9.
Corners — EY 1, Get 23.
Goalies — EY, Emily Bodien (18 saves). Get, Judy Neemeyer (2 saves).
JV score — Gettysburg 3, Eastern York 0