Page 172 - WHS FH 2014

Greenwich coach Ally Orrico had nothing but praise for her players, who gave it all they had and pushed the
conference top seed to the brink of elimination. "I'm very proud, they worked very hard and it was a great
game," said Orrico. "I just said keep doing what they had been doing and we brought what we had been
practicing into the game. It was just a great game on both sides of the ball."

The Cardinals finally broke through to take a 1-0 lead with 23:52 left in the second half as Paige Mautner
converted a set up by Erika Hvolbeck. The goal ignited the Greenwich team and the Cardinals were able to play
even with Wilton, making it look as though the Warriors were going to settle for a heartbreaking defeat. Finally,
on their sixth penalty corner of the second half, Wilton tied the score, even if it was not the prettiest tally.

The play went to the front of the cage and it looked like Greenwich had dodged another scoring chance. The
ball however ended up on Susie Clasby's stick and she sent a low shot in to tie the score at 1-1 with 7:12 left on
the clock.

Wilton almost scored with seven seconds left but the game moved into the sudden death, 10-minute overtime
period, where Greenwich held the early momentum, but Wilton stole it back by making a second extra period
necessary. Wilton improved to 12-1-1 on the year. Hynes said it was amazing how her team has come together
after losing eight players to graduation. She said they really have supported each other and have never let
adversity overwhelm them but she admitted Saturday was one of those games’ coaches dread.

"We couldn't finish, and their goalie did a tremendous job," said Hynes. "We've played in overtime games
before and just Wednesday we learned the hard way against Greenwich that we can lose but thank God we
pulled through."

Cunningham agreed with her coach and feels this is just a start to something that can be special.

"I think my team is just very good at keeping our confidence in each other and pumping each other up. I think
that is what got us through by keeping it together," said Cunningham. "It was so overwhelming to do it for my
team because that is all I wanted to do. I think it is our year. I feel our team is very close and very connected
and we could go pretty far." Greenwich is now 6-5-3.