MARYLAND HEIGHTS – In basketball, it might be called goal-hanging or cherry-picking.
But with seven minutes remaining to determine the Pool B championship at the Gateway Classic field hockey tournament on Saturday, John Burroughs sophomore Kate Logsdon and junior Sarah Ding deemed it, necessary.
Twice, Logsdon drifted ahead of the defense in hopes of receiving a long pass, and twice Ding tried to send it her way, but both times the connection was denied by an alert Glenbrook stick.
“I do my best to get as open as I can, because I know Sarah can send it really well,” Logsdon said.
“I was trying to find her,” Ding added. “Kate is so fast, she’s wherever she needs to be.”
Logsdon found the perfect spot to deliver the game-winning goal and Ding added one for insurance as John Burroughs rallied late to defeated Glenbrook (IL) 4-2 and clinch the talent-rich Pool B championship at SportPort International.
John Burroughs (1-0-2), the Missouri state runner-up last season, went undefeated to win a pool that included Pioneer, the defending state champion from Michigan; Christian Academy, a state semifinalist in Kentucky; and Glenbrook, the state runner-up in Illinois.
“It was a lot of fun. I’m very pleased with our product over the weekend,” John Burroughs coach Meridith Thorpe said.
The Ding to Logsdon connection worked its magic in the closing seconds before halftime, when Ding rocketed a pass into the circle from 25 yards away that Logsdon stopped and fired into the cage to tie the score 2-2 at intermission.
“I saw Kate, and I thought, ‘I’ll just send it in and Kate will get it from there,’ and she sure did,” Ding said.
But despite glorious scoring chances from both teams in the third quarter and the start of the fourth quarter, no shots entered the cage, and a tie game would have crowned either Glenbrook or Pioneer the winner of the pool.
“I thought our discipline was very strong,” Thorpe said. “We were mindful of the time, where we were, what we needed to be doing, and how we needed to go about doing it.”
John Burroughs, normally a possession-oriented team, began taking chances with Logsdon leaking ahead and Ding trying to find her with long passes.
The tactic loosened the center of the Glenbrook defense, and soon, Ding found room to dribble. She spotted sophomore Katy Chapman on the right side, who promptly delivered a reverse pass into the center of the circle that Logsdon craftily steered into the net with the toe of her stick with 6 minutes 17 seconds to play.
“It was a great reverse by Katy and it got in (the net) somehow,” Logsdon said.
Glenbrook (1-1-1) responded with a mad flurry, entering the circle and firing two dangerous shots in rapid succession that senior goalkeeper Kate Grady denied with her pads.
“I don’t really think about the score. I just think about what’s happening in that exact moment,” Grady said. “It happened pretty quick, I was already in position from the first shot and the second one was also low and coming to my legs, so it wasn’t a ton of shifting.”
John Burroughs senior Katherine Pruitt earned a corner moments later and Ding provided the exclamation point, accepting the insert from junior Emma Zhang and blasting a shot through the defense and into the cage to open a 4-2 advantage.
“I practiced straight shots all summer, fast and through,” Ding said. “As soon as I hit it, ‘I thought, ‘That was a good hit.’ The post (defender) almost tipped it, and it was a sigh of relief when it bounced behind her.”
She added, “That was the moment I thought, ‘We have this game under control.’”
John Burroughs seemed to have the game under control in the first quarter when a perfect breakout was started by Chapman, advanced by Logsdon and centered to Zhang to produce the opening goal.
But Glenbrook’s ability to earn corners was becoming a problematic theme for the Bombers.
John Burroughs was able to stymie the first four corner opportunities, but freshman Sarah Anetsberger scored off the fifth corner, and senior Madison Beach deposited a goal on the eighth to give Glenbrook a 2-1 lead.
“In the beginning, they did a lot of straight shots and I just had to get out and block it, but they started incorporating passes, and it’s really hard to break down your feet,” Ding said. “It opened our eyes, that, ‘They’re in this, too.’”
But the Ding to Logsdon connection before the half pulled the Bombers even, and their ability to each notch fourth quarter goals helped the Bombers earn a hard-earned Pool B trophy.
“It’s really exciting,” Ding said. “It’s great to start the season off strong.”