In their opening week of league play, the Saint Francis varsity field hockey team beat one of their biggest rivals, Los Gatos, in a historic 4-1 win at home. With an intense rivalry between the two teams dating back over a decade, the Lancers won at home for the first time in over ten years. Let’s take a look at what happened and what goes into their success as a team.
Leading up to game day, having quality practices is essential. Practice is truly where a team is able to build off each other and grow. Intensity at practice translates to fierce play during games. Sam Enerio (’26) states, “When everyone at practice is dialed-in and one person says to lock-in, it really helps the rest of us focus.” Alanna Loughran (’25) adds, “The practice before a game is really important to our team because we are all excited to push each other to get ready.”
Additionally, before they step on the field to warm up, the team has unique traditions to get in the game day mindset. For big rivalry games, they coordinate matching outfits and hair. For example, for this game against Los Gatos, they wore their varsity jackets, jeans, and pigtails. Not only does it unify them as a team, but it also gets classmates and teachers to talk about the game. After school, the team brings the energy up with a hype circle in the locker room. Once on the field, they pray and then go to the center of the field to cheer before they start their warm ups. Captain Sophia Cordoni (’25) explains, “We do the Go-Bananas cheer as a tradition to get in the zone and we had a really strong and high-intensity warm up which truly helped us bring a win.” Starting off strong is key to having a good game. Enerio adds that for the Los Gatos game, “I think we had a good start and really high energy which really helped our momentum.” Loughran emphasizes that “our traditions help us mentally prepare and eliminate any distraction from the day.”
Once on the field, another really crucial factor in a team sport like field hockey is chemistry. Cordoni notes, “We also had great team chemistry, which is really important because it helped us perform on the field.” She adds that “having 13 seniors really helped because we know each other and how we play.”
This game also represented resilience for the team. After Los Gatos scored in the middle of the first quarter, Saint Francis came back to end the first quarter tied 1-1. Then, the Lancers scored again in the second quarter and twice in the third to end the game 4-1. Enerio notes, “I think we really encourage each other and after we scored every goal, it made us more hype.” Not only did the team come back from being a goal down, but they also scored four unanswered goals and vigorously defended their lead until the end of the game.
This victory was very special and meant a lot to the team and field hockey program. Cordoni notes, “This win was really important because it showed the strength of our program, and it was a reflection of how we will do later in this season, including winning CCS at the end,” which is the team’s ultimate goal. Come out to Higgins and support our Lancers as they continue the rest of their season!
