At the half, the score stood 0-0. The Forest Hills Field Hockey team walked over to the goal in a dejected huddle. As halftime went on, a new confidence seemed to be instilled into the team as they came out into the second half. Six goals and thirty minutes later, Forest Hills was moving onto the semifinals of the state field hockey tournament. It was a complete team effort and everyone was involved.

“When it comes down to it, there were numerous girls that were scoring goals,” head coach Andrea Shaner said. “Obviously, it was a team effort throughout this game.”

The team got off to a slow start with no goals in the first half. However, Forest Hills possessed the ball for almost the entirety of the first half as they began to break down the defense of St. Catherine. Although they produced an attack, they still couldn’t manage to break through the wall of defense set by St. Catherine. According to Shaner, halftime seemingly sparked the Forest Hills team.

“I think we really clicked during halftime,” Shaner said. “At the very beginning of the season, we sat down and went through goals for the season. The one big thing was that we want to go to states. We want to get a state championship trophy. We had to pull together. It’s that little extra push that really got us going.”

Winning quarterfinals puts Forest Hills one step closer to their goals of a state championship. Shaner said that her team is “absolutely” good enough to win a state title and the “highest caliber” in Division 2. Before a state title can be won, Forest Hills must win the semifinals. This team is hoping for a little revenge in a rematch with Hartland on Thursday.

“We are excited to play in the semifinals,” Shaner said. “The team, hopefully, we’ll be playing is Hartland. That was a team that we played and lost to 2-1. They play a similar game to St. Catherine. They really just hit the ball, dump it to a corner, and chase it. We’ll hopefully stop them and shut them down. Hopefully we are going to carry through and get to states on Saturday.”