With Berth Into County Championship on the Line, Southampton Field Hockey Falls to Greenport/Southold

Last week’s match between host Southampton and Greenport/Southold field hockey on October 12 had a lot more implications than a typical regular season finale would have.

Though neither team possessed shiny records — both 1-12 overall on the season coming into the match — the winner would finish the season an even 2-2 against fellow Class C teams in the county and therefore advance to the Suffolk County Class C Championship against Pierson (7-7 overall) at Newfield High School on October 29.

Jada Clark scored two goals for Greenport/Southold, her second coming with 1:01 remaining in the third quarter, and it held up as the game-winner, pushing the Porters to another county final showdown with Pierson — they lost to the Whalers, 4-0, in last year’s final.

“It was a very hard season for us,” Southampton head coach Jackie Trelease said after the game. “We’re very young and most of them have never played 11 v. 11 hockey. It’s a bummer to lose it, but something for them to come back and want next year because we’re only losing four seniors, three that played tonight.”

Greenport/Southold scored its first two goals of the game within the final minute of the respective quarter, with the third and final tally coming just a second outside the minute mark. Mae Dominy put the Porters on the board with 49.5 seconds remaining the first quarter, but to Southampton’s credit, the team came right back and controlled the tempo of the match in the second quarter, eventually finding the back of the cage when Maggie Glanz scored off an assist from Daelyn Palmore with 9:21 remaining in the first half.

But, Greenport/Southold started to put pressure on Southampton’s defense late in the half, and when a Southampton defender made an errant pass trying to clear the ball, it instead found the stick of Clark in the middle of the box, who was able to take a few extra seconds to collect herself, allowing a solid shot that easily went into the cage, making it a 2-1 game at halftime.

Just like the start of the second quarter, the Mariners came out strong in the third. Palmore sent a shot in that Mya Halsey was able to tip in, evening the game at 2-2. But then Clark scored her second goal of the game with just over a minute remaining in the quarter, and with neither team scoring in the fourth and final quarter, the game ended at 3-2.

Just prior to the game, the Mariners recognized their four outgoing seniors, Chloe Phillips, Kyla Eleazer, Olivia Masone and Jackie Thulin. Trelease said each girl will be missed for different reasons.

Phillips had never played goalie when she joined the team as a freshman four years ago, but she took the job head on and wound up being a stalwart for the team in the cage. She earned All-Division honors last year and could very well see those honors again this season. Eleazer was a strong player for the Mariners, Trelease said, and she was sorely missed in last week’s finale, having missed the final games of the season due to a concussion she suffered against Pierson on October 12.

Masone, Trelease said, had been a utility player on the left side of the field the past two years, and Thulin, “came out of nowhere,” Trelease added.

“She didn’t play that much last year, she was basically a bench player, but she ended up becoming our captain and I don’t think I subbed her out once all season, so she’s been great. Sad to see her go,” she said of Thulin. “She was always positive. The young ones are most comfortable talking to her. She will be a big loss. They all will.”

Overall, Southampton has a young team with many of its players expected back. Carly Kreymborg is a 12-year-old eighth-grader who skipped the third grade, but was playing on the field for the Mariners all season, and there are more young girls on the way. The problem, Trelease said, is that there hasn’t been much of a youth program in Southampton the past few years to help teach the game. She said when Nancy Skein retired as a middle school coach a few years back, the program started to take a dip in numbers, and when girls soccer became more popular, field hockey within the district took an even stronger hit.

“It’s not taught in gym, so the kids aren’t seeing it. So we’re losing athletes to other sports,” Trelease said. “We have done a lot of clinics with these guys, but they’ve never played 11 v. 11, which is hockey. They’ve played 8 v. 8, 9 v. 9, because the teams have always been so short. This is the first year playing 11 v. 11, and for them it kind of sucks because they got thrown into varsity having to learn it and we started with Bayport, Harborfields and Rocky Point. It’s like getting punched in the face.”

There are 19 girls currently playing at the middle school level who should come up and start to help feed the varsity program soon, Trelease said, and there were 30 players at the most recent clinics held on Sundays. Eventually, if things continue to progress, Trelease thinks the program will be able to bring back a junior varsity team, but that’s a few years away.

Regardless, Trelease will see how the program does from afar, as she said this season — her sixth as head coach of varsity — would be her last, at least for the immediate future. With three children of her own — Carter, 12, Emily, 7, and Madison, 5 — Trelease, an East Quogue resident, just felt like now was the time to spend with them.

“My kids play travel sports. They’re getting picked up and driven by other people’s parents every day — I have to go be a parent,” she said. “I mean I love [coaching], I wouldn’t ex-out ever coming back, but right now with them it’s just overwhelming.

“But this team, I tell them all the time, if they stick with it and do some offseason stuff — which some of these girls I haven’t seen since last October until August when preseason shows up — they pick up a stick, they stay in shape, when they’re seniors, or even next year, should be a totally different year for them,” Trelease added. “They should be able to go almost 50/50 if they set their minds to it.”