Cinnaminson field hockey hosted Rancocas Valley (15-3) for the Pirates (10-5-2) regular season finale on Friday afternoon, dropping a 3-0 decision as the team looks ahead to the playoffs.
After a heartbreaking 1-0 loss to Delran on Wednesday, the Pirates knew coming into the game with Rancocas Valley that it would be a tough one, but head coach Gina Quaranta wanted a tough game prior to the playoffs.
“I think it was a great game to have a week before going into playoffs. Even with the loss, I think we played a really solid game today, as far as following our gameplan and preparing ourselves for next week. We just weren’t able to score on the few opportunities we had today in front of the cage. But, we’ll make that happen next week.”
It took close to 13 minutes before RV got on the board in the first half, scoring the game’s first goal with 17:25 to go before the break. That would be the lone goal in the first stanza, as the score remained 1-0 at halftime.
Rancocas Valley added a second goal with 15:42 left in the second and put the game away with 11:04 remaining to return home with a 3-0 victory.
Keeper Lauren Friedrich made 11 saves in the loss as Rancocas Valley spent a large portion of the game in the Pirates defensive end, making it very difficult for the offense to get anything going.
The Pirates were shutout twice this week and scored just one goal in their lone win, a 1-0 victory over Northern Burlington in overtime.
“Tough week scoring-wise. We’ve had some tough opponents,” Quaranta said. “It is something we’ve been working on, just mentally knowing we might have only one chance in front of the cage. We have to continue to make every touch in front of the cage important and count every time. We will continue with that next week.”
Field hockey begins the playoffs on Friday, October 30 with a home game against Gloucester (11-4-1) at 4pm. Cinnaminson comes in as the four-seed and Gloucester is the five-seed in the Central, Group 1 Tournament.
“It is tough to sit for a week, but it is nice to be in control of our preparation,” Quaranta said. “We will model our practices after games, keeping them as intense as possible to be able to model game situations and be ready for next Friday.”
Cinn City Sports will have coverage of the playoff opener. Follow us on Twitter for live updates.
[…] Pirates lost their last two regular season games, 1-0 to Delran and 3-0 to Rancocas Valley. In their final three games of the regular season, the Pirates scored just one goal, which came in […]