Posted on 13 November 2008 by .
By Phil Murphy
Senior Multimedia/Content Manager, Washington D.C.
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The referees and coaches gathered on the near sideline with 3 minutes, 33 seconds left in the first half of a Virginia AAA state quarterfinal with Northern Region champion Lake Braddock leading Central Region runner-up Maggie Walker by three goals.
Both the Bruins’ and Dragons’ coaches wanted to finish the first half — the minimum duration of an official game — as did the referees.
But Mother Nature had other plans.
The turf fields at the National Training Center in Virginia Beach, designed with state-of-the-art drainage systems, held nearly half an inch of standing water.
“This isn’t even field hockey,” one of the on-site head officials said.
But despite the soggy Astroturf — and an amazing second-half rally by Maggie Walker — Lake Braddock eventually prevailed, 3-2, Thursday afternoon to advance to the Friday’s semifinal round.
“I took my first hit and it didn’t move anywhere,” said Bruin senior Laura Brodner, who scored two of the Bruins’ three goals. “In the first two or three minutes we had that first goal in already, we were pumped, we were energized. It’s our first game here, we’re here on the turf and then that rain delay hit.
“I don’t know what happened.”
While the Bruins proved more adept swimmers through the entirety of the first half, it was the Dragons who upped their game with the drier, more playable conditions when the game resumed.
After the 30-minute rain delay, Maggie Walker forward Katelyn Daughtery scored with :19 left in the first half on a set play on a penalty corner from an assist by Kelsey Sawyer.
The Dragons and Bruins decided to forego the five-minute halftime and, with minimal time to regain momentum, Lake Braddock allowed its lead to be cut to a single goal when Maggie Walker midfielder Deirdre Gill slapped home a breakaway off a free hit with 17:23 remaining in the game.
The key to the Dragon turnaround may have been their inability to return to their team bus during the lengthy weather interruption.
The bus was taken from the parking lot for maintenance on the back window. And while other teams ran for shelter from the driving rain — and warmth — the Dragons (16-5) were forced to endure torrential weather.
“I’m screaming at them, ‘Get on the bus! Get warm,’ and they’re like, ‘We don’t have a bus,'” said Dragon Coach Paige Hawkins, who graduates a staggering 15 seniors. “Half my kids stayed out here and half my kids went to the bathroom and kind of hung out. I said, ‘This is the game of your lifetime. This is what we’ve been working for since August 1.’
“I told them they had to change three things: Be more aggressive, get your stick closer to the ground and get corners.”
Added Brodner: “We came back out and you’d think we could play better because we actually had a field we could hit on. I figured we were like, ‘Okay, he have three points, it’s an easy walk-through now. We can just play our game.’
“We let them dominate that entire half.”
Lake Braddock (23-1) advances to face Eastern Region runner-up Princess Anne (17-3), a three-time AAA state champion (2000, 2001 and 2004), at 3 p.m. on Friday.
“If we had just dominated this entire game, we would’ve been walking in tomorrow with our heads a little bit too big,” Brodner said. “Hopefully now we know this isn’t going to be easy, that anything can happen.
“And even if we’re down tomorrow we know that they almost came back on us. We can come back, we can go through. Anything is possible.”
Maggie Walker 1 1 — 2
Lake Braddock 3 0 — 3
Goals:
LB – Brodner (7)
LB – Gambescia (10)
LB – Brodner (24)
MW – Daughtery (30)
MW – Gill (43)
Email: pmurphy@digitalsports.com
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