Despite a recent loss against West Milford, the WHHS Field Hockey team has started off strong with an overtime win against rival Wayne Valley, and a 3-2 record.

With the loss of their five seniors from last year, Gwen Sanagustin, Erica Radler, Jenn Cantilli, Amanda Fortemps, and Amanda Carey, have stepped up to become the team’s new key players,” says Coach Jacquelynn Giammetta. Captain Sanagustin agrees with Giammetta, adding, “…Amanda Fortemps is definitely one of the key players this year. She comes out to every game hard and owns the game, no matter the outcome.”

New strategies include the addition of a third defense-man as sweep has prevented countless goals on senior, Annisa Morales- Logue. “A sweep has helped defense so much. When one defender gets beat, having Jaylin [Montalvo] hanging back gives the rest of the team time to sprint back and help. Also, the fact that we conditioned so much during pre-season makes it easy to stay in the entire game and sprint when we have to without getting tired,” said Junior Meghan O’loughlin.

Coach Giammetta knew that conditioning had been a problem in past years, so this pre-season, the team worked hard at every practice including running afterwards.

Their next game is September 26 at Demarest High School.