Field Hockey Elite

When it comes to the sport of field hockey, the girls of Applewood Heights Secondary School rule…again. Last weekend the team travelled to Kitchener to represent Peel, for the sixth consecutive year, at the OFSAA provincial championships.

Expectations were a little uncertain this September for coach Lianne Turner and her assistants Jenna Adleman and Ashley Joyce (both Applewood grads): it was to have been a rebuilding year, with only four players returning from last season’s starting eleven and several newcomers getting their first taste of the game.

But, after three days of try-outs, a flock of two-hour practices and pre-season tournaments at Waterloo, McMaster and Iceland, there was a sense that the team was going to be something special again.

The girls compete at Peel’s premier level (Tier 1) against the likes of Clarkson, Glenforest, Gordon Graydon, Lorne Park, Mayfield and Robert Hall, and finished the regular schedule with a record of 5 wins and a tie. In the playoffs, they trounced Graydon 6-0 in the semi-final and edged past arch-rivals Lorne Park in the championship game.

Turner, who also coaches the girls’ rugger team (with an OFSAA bronze to her credit, it must be added), reintroduced field hockey at Applewood in 2001 after a break of more than twenty years. She arrived at the school to find that girls’ sports comprised cross-country running, tennis and basketball, and decided it was time to diversify.

A number of the 19 girls on the current hockey squad have followed her multi-tasking lead: several double at rugger and one of the goalies is also captain of the basketball team.

The field hockey credentials of the coaching staff are impeccable: all three play at the club level after successful OUAA varsity careers in the sport – Turner at Brock, Adleman at Waterloo and U of T, and Joyce at York.

“We think the world of this year’s team,” says Turner; “they’re hard-working, determined and passionate about the sport – it really matters to them. They work well together as a group, and their tenacity makes them successful.”

The girls experienced mixed fortunes in Kitchener: they advanced from round robin play in Pool C with a second place finish (based on a win, a loss and a tie), and won their first playoff match before falling to the eventual champions, St. John’s Kilmarnock, in Saturday’s semi-final. Alas, a place on the podium was not to be theirs, as they lost the bronze medal encounter with Forest Heights by the margin of the game’s only goal.

Still, fourth best in Ontario in a rebuilding year…a formidable performance!