A pre-season indoor field hockey tournament, featuring both OUA and alumni teams, produced mixed results for the Varsity Blues as they split a pair of games against their top league competition, while winding up with a tie and a loss to a pair of alumni squads.
U of T kicked off the tournament on a strong note defeating host York in their own gym at the Tait McKenzie Centre 5-3 with a hat trick from Emily Rix and two goals from Philippa Kedgley in an early Saturday morning affair.
Later that same morning the Blues took on a team of Guelph Gryphons alumni in what turned out to be a game of missed opportunities.
The teams traded goals just before the midway point of the 20 minute first half, as Rix redirected a beautiful crossing pass in for a goal at the eight minute mark before the Gryphons took advantage of a ball that took a funny bounce off a player’s leg to tie the game about a minute-and-a-half later.
Those, however, would represent the only goals in the opening half, despite a fast tempo and many close calls at both ends.
The Blues came out and dominated the second period of play, peppering the Gryphons goalie with shot after shot right after the resumption of play.
That edge in play would be rewarded when Janet French caught the Guelph netminder straying from her crease and deked around her to set up an easy shot into the empty net for the go-ahead goal.
Unfortunately, the big advantage for the Blues in second half scoring opportunities would not translate into any further goals and U of T would pay for not adding an insurance marker when the Gryphons scored on a blistering high shot with just over three minutes left in the game.
That ended the scoring, with the Blues settling for a 2-2 tie.
“You know any time you’re leading by just one goal anything can happen,” said U of T coach Beth Ali, who was happy with her team’s play but frustrated by the result. “I was more disappointed that we had chances to score and didn’t score to break the game open.”
Both Ali and star offensive player Rix agreed that the team executed their passing and ball movement well, and that the scoring touch would undoubtedly come once the players got a couple more games under their belts and the final roster is set in place.
“That will come with practice,” said Rix of the offence, noting that indoor hockey is much more conducive to goal scoring than the outdoor game of field hockey that all of the players play for U of T in the fall season.
“You can cover the court in a matter of seconds. It shouldn’t be hard to score a goal.”
The Blues struggled in their two Sunday games to wrap up the tournament, as the defending OUA champions, Waterloo, beat them 5-2 in an early game, before York’s alumni team beat U of T 7-2.
However, as Ali pointed out, there was a lot of line juggling in these exhibition games, and many of the core players yielded playing time to lesser players as decisions on final roster cuts will come shortly. “We’re really mixing the lineup quite a bit so people who normally play together aren’t together right now,” said Ali.
Next week’s regular season opening tournament at Guelph should give a better indication of how the Blues stack up with their OUA counterparts as they try to regain the league title they won two years ago.
