On Oct. 27, prior to the Hamilton West field hockey team leaving the team bus for a state tournament game at Jackson Liberty, coach Judy Goldstein told them a little story that may or may not have been true for all she knew.
“I said to the girls ‘I don’t think anybody at West has ever won a game like this,’” Goldstein recalled. “I said, ‘Let’s be the first one. How about if we do it?’ I really had no idea if another team had won one, but after I told them that they were so pumped, I didn’t tell them that part.”
Athletic Director John Costantino was at the game, and Goldstein asked him to double check that little detail. Costantino did just that, and it turned out that the Hornets 1-0 win over Jackson Liberty in the Central Jersey Group III tournament that day was, indeed, the first field hockey state tournament win in Hamilton’s long history.
Granted up until a few years ago, teams with Hamilton’s record (4-12) did not even qualify for the states, as they had to be .500. However, this was not some rubbish win over another team with a losing record. Jackson Liberty entered the game at a 9-8-1 and, if Las Vegas was setting high school field hockey lines, the Lions would have been the heavy favorite despite the fact they were taken to penalty strokes by Hamilton in the 2013 states.
This year, when junior Shaye Kavanagh scored a first-half goal, it was all the Hornets would need.
“I still can’t believe it,” Kavanagh said. “As corny as this sounds, it didn’t even feel real. I didn’t even realize I made the goal until my team come running up to me.”
Goldstein called the shot “a legitimate goal.”
“It wasn’t like a cheap little shot,” she said. “We’ve lost so many games on goals like that. A humpty dumpty little thing where a defender hits it into their own goal. But this was legitimate.”
Kavanagh scored when Madyson Yousko sent a pass in front, and Kavanagh was able to direct it in. It came five minutes into play, meaning Hamilton had to spend the next 55 minutes making it stand up.
“Once she scored, it was the realization that ‘Hey we can do this. We’re going to do this,’” senior Mackenzie Kostin said. “Once we were winning in the game we knew we could pull through, and it was that much more important knowing we could make school history.”
Since scoring goals was the Hornets biggest issue this year, Goldstein was thrilled to see them get one. After that, it was a matter of playing the way they usually played.
“I think what happened was we took advantage of a team expecting to win, and we scored quick,” the coach said. “I know my kids’ best game is hunkering down on defense. We do that and then fight to score a goal.”
This time, though, the goal came first.
“So we just had to hunker down and play that defense,” Goldstein said. “I would have liked to get another goal, but I know they were thinking, ‘Let’s not let the ball go down to that end.’ They all hunkered down and (goalie) Alyssa Langevin did a great job.”
The end of the game got tense when one of Jackson Liberty’s forwards received the ball along the sideline. Kostin locked onto her and stayed on her, keeping her from getting a dangerous scoring opportunity.
“First off, Mackenzie Kostin believed with all her heart we were gonna win, and she was probably one of the strongest motivators in that game, running her heart out, exhausted and still running,” Goldstein said. “They were really pressing at the end. Their girl picked it up, and Mackenzie ran on to her and tied her up and kept that girl from driving down the field. That had to be the most exciting minute I’ve seen, and she really challenged that girl.”
Kostin said she only did what she had to do to preserve the Hornets’ slim lead.
“I just knew there was a minute left, and I knew we couldn’t let them score at that point,” she said. “No matter how much energy we had left, we had to use it all and slow them down and stop them. I just had to stay with her. I kept my stick next to her and did not let her dribble off or pass.”
For Kostin, it was all about making dreams come true—literally.
“My coach told me she had a dream about how the game would go,” she said. “She told me that we would win, but she didn’t tell me how we did it until after the game. She told me the dream was I would stall the girl, and we would win the game.”
When the whistle sounded, a jubilant group of Hornets boarded the bus and celebrated at a nearby WaWa before getting on to Interstate 195. It hardly mattered they lost to state power Moorestown in the next round.
“I’m just so proud of my team,” Kostin said. “As a bunch of seniors we can say we were on the first team that won a state game in school history.”
Those seniors included Stephanie Hampton, Sophia Legaspi, Debora Lemus, Audrey Manion, Brittney May, Barbara McTamney and Kayla Parsons.
The seniors—and every other girl on the team—said Goldstein, helped bring a sense of legitimacy to the program with the win.
“This helped build up the honor and pride and teamwork and making sense of what they’ve been doing all year and the past four years for my seniors,” she said. “Every year we’re mostly getting stronger, and we believe more that we can do it. It’s not just the coaches doing the cheerleading thing. I really believe this game was monumental in helping us develop a stronger program now and in the future.”
Goldstein, who has coached high school field hockey for over 30 years, just completed her seventh season at Hamilton. Several years ago, she began running a summer camp for incoming freshmen so they would have some idea of what field hockey was about when they got to high school. Varsity players would serve as instructors, and Kostin said “doing that actually helped me get better.”
The results have been slow but seem to be helping the Hornets. Their four wins this season were one less than their combined amount of five over the previous four years.
“It’s an uphill climb but we’ve been going uphill, definitely,” Goldstein said. “They’ve gotten that attitude now that tomorrow can be better. They’re looking toward the future. They never wallow in their losses. And that has freed them to be able to win, or at least be a more challenging program to other teams.”
It has also made them the proud history makers at Hamilton High West.
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