Jefferson varsity field hockey has added a disappointing loss to their mixed season – seven wins to eight losses – when they lost to Marshall in the Capital Conference Field Hockey Championship. Despite the loss, they emerged as one of the top three in their conference, securing them a place in Regionals. The team had won the previous  three games, but the streak was not to continue. Marshall defeated them 3-2.

The loss was close. The second goal came in the last ten minutes, and Jefferson remained up in Marshall’s side of the field for the rest of the game. “Towards the end of the game we were up by their goal, so we were really close to scoring,” junior Dana Scheetz said.

Even after this loss, Jefferson is still in the top three of their conference. Early next week, the team will play at home for the first game of regionals. “It was Conference Championship and it’s going to affect our brackets for regionals so it was kind of a make-it-or-break-it game, and then we didn’t win it,” Chidanandan said.

High-stakes and down-to-the-wire are a stressful combination. “It was such a high-intensity game. Everyone was playing really hard, sprinting and yelling and talking,” Scheetz said.

“The last ten minutes of the game was when we made our second goal, and it was the most stressful last ten minutes of any game we’ve played,” freshman Yukta Chidanandan said.

The team has practiced a great deal to progress this far in their rank. “Practices are a lot of conditioning; we do one and a half or two miles of a run at the beginning, and then we do stick skills or scrimmage practice,” Chidanandan said.

Their win-loss record for the whole season is mixed- seven wins, and eight losses, although most of their losses are as close as this last one was.

“They’re our rivals, so we went in wanting to win,” Scheetz said. “We don’t really want to go in with an expectation of whether we’re going to win or lose, because then we might get cocky or discouraged, but we thought we had a pretty good shot.”