 Hello, and welcome to the Coach's Corner. I'm Joe Wamba, joined now with Laurel Martin, head coach of the women's field hockey team. And Coach, last week, pretty well-played games on your part, just not the result. 2-0 with York and dead even statistically. We'll talk a little bit about that game to start us off. Well, the team was very motivated to come out on our home field again and to play York. And we played well. We fought with them statistically. We were neck and neck. Then we pulled our goalie in the end to try and stir some things up when we were down by two goals. And we basically prevented them from even having a shot on cage during that time frame. So we played well. And we do. And we have consistently played well. We just not having much luck here and not putting it all together. And along those lines of playing well, you go to Arcadia over the weekend, 4-3 in overtime. But you guys, you take the early lead. They equalize. And then you guys are in a battle for the last probably 45 minutes of that game. Yeah, yeah. So Arcadia was, they're a very aggressive team. They're a very physical team. And in the beginning, we struggled a little bit adapting to the field, which was slower and a little bit chunkier than what we're used to. And we had to learn how to hit the ball again and how to adjust our style a little bit to adapt to that surface. And we did so very well. And we scored first with a wonderful overlapping midfield goal from Sara McVeigh, who has been hungry to score and was able to put it in the net. And we also had a brilliant goal from Lexi, who was scrapping in the circle off of a penalty corner. We haven't had too much luck with penalty corners. So that was nice to see that we could do something with that. And then Ashley Myers, who's at a newfound position of forward, scored her first goal ever here at Stevenson. So I feel very positive about our future. And I know that our record right now is two and eight. I think realistically, with some maturation and some growth, really, we could be eight and two right now. Easily, really. Just we're in the ball game with every single game. We just one step behind. And it's the adaptability and maturity that's progressing through the season that leads you to the optimism. You've changed tactics a couple of times, and they've paid off, right? You might have some people argue that. We don't know. I think so. I mean, we're moving in the right direction. The good thing about this team and the challenge about this team is there are a lot of strong athletes on this team, and everyone is vying for a position. And we have some people who have been playing consistently for four years that have freshmen that are knocking on the door. And as a coaching staff, they're making it extremely difficult for us to try and figure out, OK, well, who is the starting lineup? And what is the best combination? And how can we adjust this? And there just hasn't been consistency yet to fine tune exactly who that is and who's playing where. But I think we're real close. And I mean, maybe some inconsistency in the lineup leads to working harder throughout the week to be in that lineup in the next game. It's good for them to be working that hard throughout the week. Absolutely. And I tell you, Joe, this team just keeps working hard. And when you get this far in the season and you have this many losses, a lot of times the players turn against the coaches or the coaches start to point the fingers at the players or the parents are upset with their kids or whatever. And I just don't feel that. And I think that that is going to work to our benefit. We're still working hard and we're still growing and we're still getting along. And that's what's going to lead us to become inevitably a stronger team. That is such a key piece to the puzzle is the mentality on the team translating to the mentality on the field and working with each other to get that shot off and put the ball in the net. Now, looking forward to this week, you guys go over to Crosstown Rival, McDaniel. In a similar situation, we were talking earlier in the same boat, this game is going to be awfully important for you guys. What are going to be the keys to success to go there and perform the way you want to perform? I think that we have to continue the momentum of what we've been doing with scoring. I think that we've got some speed on the forward line. I think we've got some people that can take risks and be aggressive and I think we fine-tuned our defense and we've worked on how to stop the breakdowns for other teams' counter-attack. And at this point in stage, we secure one win with some kids getting some more goals and some more confidence and everything could turn in our favor. I mean, the conference is not out of reach. We might need some help from some others. We don't know yet. We might not. So I just have to keep the team motivated and go into tomorrow fresh and hungry and hopefully we'll get maybe that bounce that rolls the ball into the case that the other team doesn't get. Maybe the ball will find the pebble that kicks it in for you. Exactly. And playing the McDaniel game, getting geared up back into conference play on Saturday with Alvernia going there. Right. Now, Alvernia is having a phenomenal season. They're currently undefeated and they're nationally ranked and deservedly so. That was the same team that we went into the ECAC championship with last year. And their team and their players are not too different from our team and our players. They've got a very strong returning All-American player in Wenzel and we'll have to handle her and we can. So I don't know. I'm a Pollyanna. But people can compare Alvernia, who's undefeated and winning all these great games, and then Stevenson, who's barely won a handful of games and say, if you were a gambling person, you'd obviously lay your odds on in Alvernia. But I don't necessarily feel as if we are, I feel as if we're just as strong as Alvernia. I think we're going to give them a fight. And I think that what's going to have to happen though is we're going to have to build some confidence with this game against McDaniel in order for us to be able to carry that momentum into the Alvernia game. The shoot easily could be on the other foot. It could be. It could be. It could happen. It could happen. It could happen. All right, Coach, well, I appreciate your time this week in talking with me this week. Sure, of course. She's Laura Martin. I'm Joe Waman. This has been the Coaches Corner.