Wvw Wallops The Mystery Team From D-4

By STEVE SEMBRAT [email protected]
Sunday, October 28, 2001 Page: 11C

KINGSTON – One goal was fine, but certainly not enough.

Wyoming Valley West learned that during the regular season.
So the Spartans didn’t feel comfortable against Shikellamy until they
scored twice in a span of 25 seconds on Saturday morning. The rapid-fire goals
by Maribeth Brozena and Kelley Smith put Valley West up by three. Those, along
with two goals by Lunda Dickson, allowed the Spartans to roll to a 4-0 victory
against Shikellamy in a District 2 Class 3A field hockey semifinal game.

Valley West (13-1-2) advances to the district championship game for the
fourth consecutive year. The Spartans will play Coughlin (10-5-0) for the
title at 5 p.m. on Wednesday at Lackawanna County Stadium.

“That’s our dream every year,” said Valley West coach Linda Fithian,
whose teams won gold in 1998 and ’99, then finished as runner-up last season.
“This year we want to finish what we didn’t last year.”

Before the Spartans could get a chance to do that, they had to face a great
unknown. That was the Braves (10-10-1), who had their season end with the
school’s first-ever playoff appearance in field hockey.

Shikellamy is the only Class 3A team that plays field hockey in District 4.
The Braves qualified for the postseason by finishing with a winning percentage
of .500 or above, and the PIAA shipped them into the District 2 playoffs to
try to win a trip to states.

Facing an unknown foe, along with a rain squall that slickened the field
just before the game, got both teams off to a tentative start.

“Once they figured it out,” Fithian said of her players, “they took it
to them.”

Dickson put the Spartans up 1-0 when she scored 13:35 into the game off an
assist from Brozena.

“We wanted to go out quick and score fast,” Dickson said. “Getting the
first goal is essential.”

Essential, but not enough, as Valley West learned in a game against
Crestwood. The Spartans took a lead in that contest, then surrendered the
tying goal just 10 seconds later in a game that wound up as a 1-1 draw.

“We want to go out and get one, then get another one and not have the
other team come right back,” Fithian said. “That is exactly what we wanted
to do.”

That is exactly what Valley West did. Brozena tapped in a pass from Jill
Rosick at 22:46 of the first half. Then the Spartans stormed right down the
field again and made it 3-0 when Smith took a pass from Melissa Stefaniak and
scored at 23:11.

“That was a big turning point,” Brozena said. “Our momentum changed. We
picked our game up. We played our serious game, and we had a lot of fun doing
it.

“We weren’t too sure of this team coming into it. It was like a mini-state
game. We didn’t know too much about them. Once we got into our game and into
the way we play, we were just fine.”

Dickson completed the scoring at 10:41 of the second half off an assist
from Rosick.