Edwardsville, Marquette Catholic together celebrate joy of field hockey, more than $1,000 raised to GlenEd Food Pantry

Oct 8, 2015 11:05 AM

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EDWARDSVILLE – For many years, field hockey was an established sport for girls athletic programs throughout the Metro East, especially when interscholastic girls' sport programs were gaining a foothold in the wake of Title IX.

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Gradually, though, field hockey programs were dropped throughout the area, to the point where only Edwardsville continued to sponsor the sport.

That changed this year when Marquette Catholic launched a program, and the only two Illinois-based programs outside Chicagoland got together for a match at Tiger Stadium Wednesday. While the Tigers went on to defeat the Explorers 7-0, just the fact that two Metro East teams were playing each other was something that made supporters of both programs happy.

“I'm so happy to see field hockey's grown on this side of the river,” said EHS coach Julia Tyler, “and that other schools are looking at adding it to their programs. Marquette is doing a very good job with their program; they've got a very good team.”

The Explorers realized that taking on an established program like the Tigers wasn't going to be easy. “We kind of expected this game to be a 7-0 game,' said Marquette Catholic coach Sara Ulrich, herself a one-time EHS player. “We knew it was going to be rough coming in, but it's fun to be back on the field; it's the same exact field I played on, so it's fun.”

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Edwardsville's experience was an overriding factor in the match, Ulrich said. “You just can tell in the way they played,” Ulrich said. “They're so fast and their stickwork is good; our's isn't. We looked like a freshman team out there, and that's because we are. I have some juniors and seniors on the team, but it's our first year, so we're at a freshman level. But we're playing a full varsity schedule and we've been competitive with most of the teams.”

Seven different Tigers scored in the match – Veronica Carrow, Allie Hosto, Annie Mulford, Claire Smith and Sophia Swalley in the first half and Maren Hampton and Ansley Dorsey in the second half – and it made Tyler a very happy coach. “I was very proud of our girls today,” Tyler said. “Our goals today were scored by seven different players and the goals we got were placed very nicely in the net or they were where they were supposed to be, so I was very proud of our girls today with their performance.”

The match was also a charity match to support the GlenEd Food Pantry. More than $1,000 was raised for the pantry through the sale of T-shirts prior to the match and donations of canned goods were taken for admission to the match for distribution to the pantry, which helps those in need in the area.

The Tigers evened their record to 8-8 with the win and will host Ursuline Academy Friday evening; the match will be Senior Night for the Tigers. Marquette fell to 2-12-1 and will close out their regular season schedule with a home match against Notre Dame Oct. 19. The match will be played at Diamond 8 at Gordon Moore Park in Alton.