Compton scores twice to lead Warren Hills field hockey past West Milford, into North Group 2 semis

Junior Katie Compton entered the Warren Hills field hockey team 's matchup with West Milford in the NJSIAA North Group 2 quarterfinals with two goals on the season.

Compton matched her scroing mark for the year in the quarterfinal to help the Blue Streaks reach the sectional semifinals for the fourth straight year.

Fourth-seeded Warren Hills dominated possession, converted on a pair of penalty corners and a pair of penalty strokes and rolled to a 5-0 win over the fifth-seeded Highlanders Thursday afternoon.

Warren Hills (17-6) will travel to top-seeded West Essex, which beat Voorhees 9-0 in its quarterfinal, in the semifinal Monday, Nov. 11 at a time to be determined.

West Milford finished the season 18-3-1.

"We played very, very well as a team," Compton said. "We came out strong, we thought that this game was going to be pretty hard since, as you go longer into states, it gets much harder."

"We wanted to swing the ball a little bit, we wanted to make sure that they (West Milford) had to run way more than we did," Warren Hills coach Erica Chesniak said. "When you're possessing it, you want to make sure that you're tiring that defense out. The girls had stick-to-stick passing today, that helps a lot."

Warren Hills put pressure on right away and opened the scoring less than five minutes in.

"Our ball control was awesome today, their intensity was from the beginning," Chesniak said. "They decided to put some in the goal early and that really started the momentum today."

Junior Samantha Heinrich appeared to score from a tight angle to West Milford sophomore goalie Emme Kreutzer's right, but a penalty stroke was given instead and Compton converted with a high shot to Kreutzer's left 4:41 into the game.

"It was very nerve-racking," Compton said. "I haven't taken a stroke in a game in a long time, but I was happy that coach (Chesniak) trusted me with that. I really wanted to get a goal for my team."

Heinrich found the cage again, and this time it counted, with 1:13 left in the first quarter. Senior Shivya Desai drove past a couple players down the right side, passed left to junior Chrissy Georgoutsos, who passed from the edge of the shooting circle to Heinrich and Heinrich drove a shot past Kreutzer and a defender near the cage.

The Blue Streaks had two corners in the second quarter and scored on both.

After Kreutzer made a pair of saves in quick succession, and a Highlander defender made defensive save, Compton was in perfect position to deflect in a shot that came from the edge of the shooting circle 3:30 into the second.

"We practice corners day in and day out. It's a routine at this point," Compton said. "We do them before games, we are very articulate with how we want it. Being in the right spots is just perfect. We've really worked hard on our forwards to get on post, on pads, so for them to convert is really relieving."

With 1:59 left before halftime, Warren Hills' fifth corner of the game worked its way over to Georgoutsos, who passed across the cage to Desai. Desai turned and shot from close range, where junior Rylie Wyckoff got a deflection that found the cage to give the Blue Streaks a 4-0 lead at the break.

Sophomore Alena Schlessinger capped the scoring 3:59 into the fourth quarter when she converted another penalty corner with a hard shot to Kreutzer's right.

"We've been really working on the strokes so it's kinda nice that we got the opportunity to see them on the field in such a competitive manner," Chesniak said. "Both of the girls were ready for the strokes, they were excited and they knew they were being called."

The Highlanders had just one shot on goal throughout the game, which was kept out by a defensive save, and two penalty corners.

"We definitely passed the ball, made smart decisions, carried when we needed to, passed when we needed to and worked as a team, which is what we really needed," Compton said.

Warren Hills has seen its season end in the sectional semis three years in a row.

"We need to play like we did today, 60 full minutes and we've gotta have an offensive game," Chesniak said. "We have to put them in the cage on Monday."

"We definitely have to come out strong like we did today," Compton added.

West Essex is ranked second in the state by NJ.com , while the Blue Streaks are ranked 20th.