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Two and out for Bears
  
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By Ryan Boldrey
Palmer Ridge tasted its first postseason victory in field hockey on Oct. 22 at Don Breese, and a day later its brief run was done.
The Bears (10-2-4), who used five different goal scorers in their 5-0 win over Fountain Valley (2-5), dropped a double-overtime heartbreaker to a Smoky Hill team (9-4-3) on Oct. 23 who had two days off between their first and second round games.
The two teams played without a goal through an hour of regulation and 10 minutes of overtime, but Smoky came up in the shootout, outscoring the Ridge 3-2 and moving on to the semifinals.
Prior to this season, however, the District 38 field hockey team had never finished with a record of greater than .500.
This year the Bears didn’t even lose their first game until the last week of the regular season.
“We’ve got a bunch of really, really intelligent great girls to work with,” head coach Paul Lewis sad. “They really have come a long way. I’m just a coach behind a good group of people.”
For the players who are seniors and have been with the program through its struggles this season just tasted all the sweeter.
“It’s really good because compared to the first year I played we’ve come so far,” said third-year player Kaitlyn McIntosh. “It doesn’t even look like us out there anymore. It’s just so cool to see how far we’ve come and how we’ve grown as a team.”
Senior Kendra Wieler, who started as a freshman in the program’s first year echoed McIntosh’s comments, and added that it has taken the team a lot of work to get to where they are, but all that work has definitely paid off.
Neither McIntosh or Wieler will be back next year— nor will fellow senior standout goaltender Alli Qunitanna or seniors Jenna Waddel and Molly Spooner— but one can bet that with what Lewis and assistant coach Kathleen Raphael have started here, the tradition of field hockey at Palmer Ridge has only just begun.
The Bears (10-2-4), who used five different goal scorers in their 5-0 win over Fountain Valley (2-5), dropped a double-overtime heartbreaker to a Smoky Hill team (9-4-3) on Oct. 23 who had two days off between their first and second round games.
The two teams played without a goal through an hour of regulation and 10 minutes of overtime, but Smoky came up in the shootout, outscoring the Ridge 3-2 and moving on to the semifinals.
Prior to this season, however, the District 38 field hockey team had never finished with a record of greater than .500.
This year the Bears didn’t even lose their first game until the last week of the regular season.
“We’ve got a bunch of really, really intelligent great girls to work with,” head coach Paul Lewis sad. “They really have come a long way. I’m just a coach behind a good group of people.”
For the players who are seniors and have been with the program through its struggles this season just tasted all the sweeter.
“It’s really good because compared to the first year I played we’ve come so far,” said third-year player Kaitlyn McIntosh. “It doesn’t even look like us out there anymore. It’s just so cool to see how far we’ve come and how we’ve grown as a team.”
Senior Kendra Wieler, who started as a freshman in the program’s first year echoed McIntosh’s comments, and added that it has taken the team a lot of work to get to where they are, but all that work has definitely paid off.
Neither McIntosh or Wieler will be back next year— nor will fellow senior standout goaltender Alli Qunitanna or seniors Jenna Waddel and Molly Spooner— but one can bet that with what Lewis and assistant coach Kathleen Raphael have started here, the tradition of field hockey at Palmer Ridge has only just begun.
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