EMMAUS MAKES A STATEMENT, ENDING A REMARKABLE STREAK

By Al Mattei
Founder, TopOfTheCircle.com

EMMAUS, Pa. -- The last time Voorhees Eastern (N.J.) lost a varsity field hockey game, Bill Clinton was President, you could take a pair of toenail clippers aboard a commercial airline flight, the field hockey stick of choice was primarily wooden, and you could count the number of scholastic field hockey teams with artificial turf fields on your hands.

This was the enormity of Eastern's 153-game unbeaten streak, ended Oct. 22, 2005 by the Green Hornets of Emmaus (Pa.), in a famous 4-1 victory at Memorial Field.

"All streaks have to end sometime," said a philosophical senior forward Meghan Bain of Eastern. "We're glad that it ended against a team that was better, instead of it ending against a team against which we regretted everything that we did."

Emmaus came into the match having surpassed its own national record for goals scored in a season by the end of its league campaign, having come into the game with 189 goals. It also came into the game as the No. 1 team in the TopOfTheCircle.com Top 10, playing against a team which had won the last three TopOfTheCountry trophies for being the finest team in all the land.

But as the clock wound down in the final two minutes of a scoreless first half, Emmaus worked some dazzling corner passing around the Viking corner defense unit, unleashing a diagonal pass that was slapped towards the goal. About three feet from the goal line, Eastern's Bryn Bain apparently had made a miraculous defensive save on the play; two distinct clicks of plastic hitting composite could be heard.

The Emmaus attackers appealed for a penalty stroke, and one was awarded after several seconds. Christina Bortz's stroke gave the hosts a 1-0 lead, by which time the light rain which had been present at the opening hitback became more intense.

Seizing the momentum, Sarah Jones, who was a major presence in the attacking third all game long (three assists) helped set up Jessica Werley's goal about a minute later with a gorgeous diagonal pass. And shortly after the interval, as the rain fell much heavier on the artificial grass, Jones set up Bortz on pretty much an identical play: a diagonal ball towards the left post which begged for a deflection.

As the old saying goes, "When it rains, it pours." Emmaus had staked itself to a three-goal lead in little more than two minutes and 40 seconds of playing time.

Bortz, who made a verbal commitment to Princeton in mid-October, sealed her hat trick four minutes from time. It was a remarkable performance by one of the nation's leading goal-scorers on a remarkable team.

"On this year's team, we have about six or seven impact players, and the others are really close," said Emmaus head coach Susan Butz-Stavin. "We've got a great top four players coming off the bench that can hold it down."

The bench goes even deeper, thanks to the leads that Emmaus has amassed against some Lehigh Valley Conference teams. Six times, the Hornets have scored 15 goals or more, leading to a lot of awkward minutes on the pitch. But that time has not been used to pad individual statistics.

"Sometimes, (the starters) play only 25 minutes, and we give the younger players a chance to hold it down for us," says Bortz. "It gets them ready for next year, because we're going to be losing a lot of us (seniors)."

Eastern had some chances, especially in the first half, but shot wide of the cage. The Viking intensity was never in doubt: the visitors strung together a tremendous vertical passing play up the left side of the field in the opening seconds of the second half, but could not find the backboard.

Seconds later, the Hornets stung Eastern for the third goal. Viking Nation, which had held its collective breath when Marlton Cherokee (N.J.) and Sewell Washington Township (N.J.) managed draws with Eastern in 2005, had the air taken out of its collective sail.

"It's about the competition and preparing these kids for the next level," said Eastern head coach Danyle Heilig, who suffered her very first loss as head coach at the school. "That's what's extremely exciting."

Eastern was able to prevent itself from being shut out with a Meghan Bain goal 2:02 from the final horn.

Collectively, the players on the 2005 Eastern team did not shed tears after the game, even after the end of an unbeaten streak that was almost 1 1/2 times the length of the previous record.

"We bust our butts every day, and (Heilig) is proud of us, and makes us proud to be Eastern," said goalkeeper Lyndsie Johnson. "She reminds us that, even today, when it wasn't the way we wanted to be, that it was just a game. But it was a game that we worked hard for. We win as a team, tie as a team, and now, we lose as a team. As long as we're a team, nothing can come between us."

"They (Emmaus) played an awesome game," Meghan Bain said. "We're just happy that we even called them in order to play them, because most teams wouldn't. Overall we played a good game, but they were just better."

Instead, Eastern seems to have taken this loss as a lesson and as a teaching point for trying to win its seventh straight Group IV championship.

"Hopefully, having played a West Essex and an Emmaus, we have put ourselves in a position to have experienced every situation possible heading into November," Heilig said.

"Eastern came with a lot of intensity, and I thought they played very tough," Butz-Stavin says. "We just took advantage of our speed up front and took advantage of a matchup."

Of course, playing Eastern a year after last year's classic 2-1 match was extra motivation.

"Playing them is like playing another Emmaus," Bortz said. "We met our equal playing Eastern last year."

"We've never had competition quite like them," Johnson said. "It doesn't affect either of our records for state tournament seeding, but it's great to play a team like Emmaus, who is so strong, and plays with intensity to the last whistle."

But at least for one year, the Hornets have the bragging rights and a strong claim to being No. 1 in the nation.

	1	2	FIN
Eastern	0	1	1
Emmaus	2	2	4

SCORING

Em: Christina Bortz, PS, 29th minute.

Em: Jess Werley (Amanda Huck, Sarah Jones), FG, 30th.

Em: Bortz (Jones), FG, 32nd.

Em: Bortz (Jones), FG, 56th.

Ea: Meghan Bain (Stephanie Carney), PC, 58th.

Shots-- Ea: 4; Em: 13.

Saves-- Ea: Lyndsie Johnson 9; Em: Abbey Huck 3.