Varsity field hockey swept East Grand Rapids in its second game against them this season on Senior Night yesterday. FH fired from all cylinders and even incorporated most of the skills they have continuously focused on in practice. This led Forest Hills to take the game with a final score of 4-0.

“We started off kind of slow,” Head coach Andrea Shaner said. “But [the coaching staff] talked to them and said, ‘You know, we need to pick it up and do better, we need to get our passing together’ and I think that [our talk] helped because they just exploded down the field and that’s exactly what they needed to do.”

Late in the game, FHC senior Madisyn Bunke went out of the game due to a brief injury; she took a ball to the kneecap with 14 minutes of the game remaining. Two minutes later, her knee was tapped up and she was ready to go. Within a good five minutes of her being back in play, she scored the fourth and final goal for FH.

“It felt good,” Madisyn said. “I first messed up the penalty corner, but then I came back and scored.”

Madisyn wasn’t the only one with a huge goal, as FHC senior Madison Bruno had a hail-mary shot on goal and it worked out to earn the third goal for FH.

With this back-and-forth game, FH defense had to be on guard. FHC senior Jayden Bonsall performed exceptionally well on the defensive side; Jayden knocked the ball down and had a great save that kept EGR from getting near the goal.

“For our last home game, I thought it went really well,” Jayden said. “[Beating EGR] felt amazing, they’re our hardest team on this side of the state. The defense did a lot of work and did really really well, we just worked on our positioning and communication.”

Just before halftime, a relay of passes moved the ball to the EGR side of the field. With roughly five minutes left in the half, Madisyn Bunke and GRC senior Emma Dodson work together to score the first goal for FH. At the end of the half, with only 01:18 left on the clock, Madison Bruno nailed one into the Pioneer’s goal, securing the second goal of the day for FH.  

At the beginning of the game, EGR attempted to move the ball up the field to the FH side, but Madison Bruno came in with the steal and passed it out of the danger zone. The first seven minutes of the game were practically spent entirely on the EGR side, trying to find a hole in the defense and score.

FH has a strong standing record of 7-4-2, two of those seven wins being against EGR. Forest Hills will take on Saline High tomorrow on the road.

“We still have to work on transferring the ball up the field and tightening up the back end,” Shaner said. “Tightening up some of those things will help us in those upcoming games.”