I received a sports release via e-mail from Keystone College earlier this week. Before reading it, I scanned for the bolded-out names seeking out any local athletes. Quite often, colleges who have my e-mail address on their master list will send me sports information updates, regardless if that press release actually includes a former Chenango County athlete.
In this Keystone e-mail, I noticed the name, Melinda Moore, a 2007 Norwich High School graduate. Before reading the entire article, I observed statistics attributed to Moore in which she was credited with shutouts, total saves, and goals-against average. My first conclusion, “oh, she’s a soccer goalie.”
The only rub here was that goals-against average is not a statistic typically attributed to soccer goalies.
Then I read the entire press release.
Six Keystone College players received Colonial States Athletic Conference (CSAC) all-conference honors in field hockey.
Field hockey?
Anyone who follows Norwich sports knows that it doesn’t have a field hockey team. In fact, Norwich dropped its field hockey program around 1986 in favor of girls’ soccer.
During her high school years at Norwich, Moore was a fine natural athlete competing in varsity basketball in the winter and track and field in the spring. In the latter sport, she became a school record-breaker in the shot put during her senior year.
I am not certain if Moore ever played soccer, but I know Moore did not play varsity soccer her senior season, the fall of 2006 under then-Norwich head coach, Scottie Decker.
Moore displayed an interest in Keystone College’s field hockey team last spring, said Keystone head coach, Kacy Manning.
“She practiced a few times in the spring last school year and played in one short game, but this year was her first competitive season,” Manning said.
So how did Moore become a starting goalie for a Division III field hockey program that won a division title and 14 of 16 games in the regular season?
The answer: Keystone needed a goalie.
“Our previous goalie had to have an ACL surgery during the spring and we were unsure if she would return,” Manning said. “Minda expressed some interest in our program, and we just put her in the goalie pads one day and she was awesome. She worked at it all summer to be the goalie for us this year.”
With no previous goal-keeping experience, Moore was a no-brainer in the cage. She had natural instincts as an athlete, and good hand-eye coordination from her days as a basketball player.
“She continues to improve even more as her understanding of field hockey develops,” Manning said. “She is a great goalie because she is an energetic and determined leader, a hard worker, and she doesn't get down on the rare occasion that she does give up a goal.”
Moore’s quick learning curve in a sport she never played gives rise to a thought? Why is field hockey not discussed as a viable sport for Norwich girls? My understanding is that NHS did not drop the sport due to lack of participation, but the lack of a willing (read qualified) coach. The longtime coach at the time, Toni DeMott, gave up her position, and within a season of her departure, Norwich field hockey was a thing of the past.
Soccer immediately replaced field hockey at Norwich, and we have never had a shortage of willing individuals capable of coaching soccer. What has come in short supply, on the varsity level for sure, is success. According to our records dating back to 1987 (Norwich’s first season as a member of the Southern Tier Athletic Conference), Norwich has produced just one winning season, that coming in 2001 under “one-year-and-done” head coach, R.J. Bevers.
Moore’s ascension up the field hockey ladder makes a strong case for field hockey as a scholastic sport. “(Field hockey) is a high energy, challenging sport and really gives young women something to make their own, develop their confidence and improve their fitness,” Manning said. “Field hockey is similar to football in that it is predominantly played by females, and football by males. I think that this makes it something special for young women to develop their confidence in their athletic abilities.”
It does take time to develop any type of athletics program, especially starting from the ground up, but there is an example in our own back yard on how to do it.
Greene Central School has a model in place in which it starts developing field hockey players on the elementary level. Volunteers are in place for summer camps and intramurals, and those programs have acted as strong feeders for a perennial Section IV power, and clearly one of the best field hockey teams in all of New York.
Schools such as Oxford and Sherburne-Earlville also have field hockey teams in place – as well as soccer – and over the past 15 years, those two schools have had much more overall success in field hockey versus the girls’ soccer teams.
After 22 years of losing seasons, Norwich might want to consider an alternative for its girls.