MARYLAND HEIGHTS – One year ago, the John Burroughs field hockey team completed an undefeated season to win its first state championship in 13 years.
The Bombers may be even better this year.
Reese Rafferty scored twice, and Emma Zhang and Kate Logsdon added a goal and an assist each as John Burroughs soared past MICDS 6-1 in a Midwest Field Hockey Tournament state semifinal Wednesday at SportPort International.
John Burroughs (17-2), which won its 15th consecutive game, advanced to its third successive state title game to face Villa Duchesne (23-2) at 11 a.m. Saturday at SportPort.
Villa Duchesne defeated St. Joseph’s 1-0 in the other semifinal.
Tied at 1 midway through the second quarter, John Burroughs began a field hockey masterpiece that even left coach Meridith Thorpe wide-eyed.
“It was almost like an out-of-body experience – yet not, because the play today is absolutely what we are capable of doing,” Thorpe said.
University of Pennsylvania commit Sarah Ding intercepted a pass in the midfield and sent it ahead to Logsdon, who crossed it to Rafferty at the back post. It was the first of several tic-tac-toe passing plays that converted defense to offense in the blink of an eye.
“We take great pride in being the first line of defense,” Zhang said. “We’re so close to the goal that if we tune up our defensive skills, we’re right there and we can score.”
Five minutes later, University of Virginia commit Katy Chapman deftly dipped into the circle and delivered the ball to Logsdon on the baseline, who sent a pass across the goal mouth that freshman phenom Lila Merlin retrieved and drilled into the cage to make the score 3-1 at halftime.
MICDS (18-5) entered the contest riding a nine-game winning streak and averaging 5.78 goals per game during that span. A key element to the Rams’ success had been breaking the game into two-minute surges – scoring within the first two minutes of quarters or within two minutes of a goal being scored, when the opponent may be experiencing a lapse of focus.
“When one team scores, within the next two minutes, another goal is scored. It’s literally a science,” said MICDS freshman Victoria Noble, who led the Rams with 28 goals this season.
The MICDS goal occurred 30 seconds into the second quarter when junior Georgia Lochhead backhanded a bounding ball into the cage during a penalty corner. The Rams also earned a corner to begin the fourth quarter, but for the most part, they were unable to gain an advantage during those two-minute increments they have relied on this season.
“We have been talking a lot about setting the tempo of the game and maintaining that tempo,” Thorpe said. “We acknowledge that there are momentum shifts over the course of the game, but we always want to have a pulse on those and be able to manage them.”
The second half was a showcase of wave after wave of John Burroughs’ pressure. Ding blasted home a goal off a corner, a backhand shot by Zhang was knocked into the cage with a baseball swing from Rafferty, and another Logsdon centering pass pinballed into the MICDS cage as the Bombers opened a 6-1 lead.
“We’ve shown this style of play before, but they just came out committed to executing the gameplan for 60 minutes and allowed us to put that product out there today,” Thorpe said.
That Bombers’ product is producing numbers that even eclipse the undefeated championship season of 2023. Last year, John Burroughs surrendered 19 goals compared to only eight this season. Sophomore goalie Tessa Zwicker has 13 shutouts and has needed to make only 43 saves in 19 games, an average of 2.26 per game.
“We have just been focusing on ourselves. One of our main takeaways is that we focus on the ‘We, not the I,’” Zhang said. “We don’t focus on who’s winning other games, we want to hone in on our skills and our game.”
Rafferty added, “We focus on the ‘now,’ not what’s going to happen. We stay in the moment and focus on what we have to get done.”
And on Saturday, John Burroughs will attempt to do what it hasn’t done since the 1999 and 2000 seasons – win back-to-back state titles.
“I’m just really happy we have three more days together,” Logsdon said. “Going into today, we said, ‘Let’s not let this be our last game.’ I’m just really proud of the team today. It was a great team effort.”
Photo gallery at https://benvessa.smugmug.com/Field-Hockey/2024-Season/John-Burroughs-vs-MICDS-state-semifinal-10-30-24.