Field Hockey: Cougars beat Bulldogs for 'Biggest Win in a While'

Oakton High senior Emily Corridon produced two sounds in quick succession late in Tuesday night’s home field hockey game against Westfield.

The first was the bang of a field hockey ball into the back of the cage, sealing the Cougars’ 3-1 win. The second was a sigh of relief.

“We were like, ‘Yes, yes, we needed that,’” Corridon said. “This is our biggest win in a while. Westfield, we’re out to get them every time. If we beat them, we know we can beat anybody.”

With the insurance goal to go with two assists, Corridon sparked an imperious second-half display from Oakton (8-1).

The Cougars erased a 1-0 halftime deficit just 1 minute, 24 seconds out of the break. Corridon threatened down the right wing, and as the Bulldog defense rotated her way, she rolled the ball to space in the middle, where fellow captain Adelle Clinton pounced to tie the score.

“We talked at halftime about 30 minutes being a long time,” Oakton head coach Kate Ruch said. “That’s plenty of time to come back. That’s kind of our M.O. We were down 3-0 at halftime against Marshall and came back to 3-2. … Once we scored that first goal, that kind of motivated them to keep going.”

Oakton owned the next 10 minutes, and its second goal followed the same script as the first. Corridon came out of a mad scramble to the right of the Westfield cage, this time finding Kara Leonard unmarked at the far post with 19:10 to play.

Westfield (10-2) had chances to tie, most notably just 23 seconds after falling behind. Coming out of a Bulldogs timeout, junior Kelly Duncan romped through the Cougar defense on a solo breakaway, only to sweep a shot just wide of the left-hand post.

But Oakton was quicker to the ball throughout the second half, and Leonard finally fed Corridon to put the game away with 2:35 left.

“We didn’t come to play today,” Westfield head coach Starr Karl said. “[Oakton] kept their sticks down and got after the ball. They really kept after it.”

The Cougars had eight days to prepare for Westfield; eight days to think about the team that beat them twice last season, 3-0 both times, once in the Concorde District final. Eight days, also, to stew over their first defeat of the season, to Marshall on Sept. 19. Two scheduled games over the weekend were postponed by weather.

In fact, Tuesday’s contest was just the third Oakton has played since school started. It also had a 16-day layoff to begin September, between its sixth and seventh games of the season.

“It’s been really tough,” Ruch said. “It’s hard to practice, practice, practice without any games, especially after a loss. They couldn’t wait to break out and redeem themselves.”

Instead, they suffered through another slow start. Westfield bossed the first 30 minutes and was rewarded just over 6 minutes before halftime, when sophomore Katie Winesett knocked home a Duncan feed for a 1-0 lead.

“When they scored that first goal, we all kind of went, ‘Oh, God,’” Corridon said.

But the core of this Oakton team has been through the wars before, including against Westfield. And they are determined that this year will be different.

“The second half is always our better half,” Corridon said. “We just came out with more fire. We did not want to lose this game.”