Girls varsity field hockey defeated the John F. Kennedy Cavaliers 4-0 in a dominant first playoff game Oct. 25, allowing them to continue in the playoffs and face off against the James Hubert Blake Bengals next.

Senior forward Emily Nagy scored a goal within the first two minutes of the game, commencing a scoring streak that lasted throughout both halves with the Cavaliers never scoring a single point against senior goalie Ryley Gardner and sophomore goalie Ashlyn Casp. Senior Zoe Moser, sophomore Emily Tran and junior Kate Holland scored the second, third and fourth goals, respectively.

“The girls played really hard the whole game and were even able to frustrate Kennedy’s players a little bit,” coach Raymond Trail said. “The players had good communication with each other and were able to move the ball where they wanted to.”

While the team enjoyed a decisive victory, Trail states that there is still room for improvement for future games.

“We’re going to have to play better transition defense, which is the process of stopping the ball and getting it right back to our midfielders,” Trail said. “Also, we need to work on not letting the opposing team get the ball down the field towards our goal.”

Players entered their first playoff game fully aware that victory would not come easy and were satisfied with the results of their efforts.

“Kennedy is a really hard team – they’re strong, so we made sure that we were prepared to work really hard for this game,” sophomore defense player Victoria Padgett said. “We beat them in one of our regular season games, so we knew they wanted to come back and beat us but we didn’t let that happen.”

The team’s next game is Oct. 30 against the Blake Bengals, which will decide who moves on to the regionals championship game.

Emily Nagy and Zoe Moser are editors-in-chief for the Rampage.