Category: Women’s Team

Women’s team victory in Boston

The Lady Eagles traveled to Boston at the end of August to take on the Boston Lady Demons on a combined team with the Philadelphia Hawks. We played with smaller sides on a condensed field, which led to a very fast paced game. Strong defensive play by Lough and Christina prevented many scoring opportunities by the Lady Demons and enabled quick transitions into the midfield and forward lines. Our midfield and forwards were dominant, scoring 16 goals and 17 behinds over 4 quarters of play. The Lady Eagles emerged victorious. We celebrated our victory with a night out in the city and some Australian pies and sausage rolls then capped off the celebration with a boat race win!

East/West Showdown: Magpie shutout, then shut out by the Maidens

In early September, the Lady Eagles traveled to New York for the East/West Showdown and the end of the regular footy season. This tournament featured teams and players from the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic along with California, Arizona, and Seattle. We began our tournament with a game against our Eastern Region rivals, the New York Lady Magpies. The Lady Eagles were dominant all game. The defense was a wall, blocking any scoring chances. The midfield led by Molly and Karen kept up the pressure, turning over the ball and transitioning it well up-field. We had good intensity and communicated well. Kristin scored the two goals for the Lady Eagles in their decisive victory.

Next, we took on the San Francisco Iron Maidens, who were the Division I USAFL National Champions in 2017. The Iron Maidens were a very strong side and moved the ball well throughout the game. We played well defensively but our communication broke down, which made it difficult to effectively clear and transition the footy down the field. Despite the loss, the game was an excellent learning opportunity and helped us prepare further for USAFL Nationals. The San Francisco Iron Maidens also beat New York and were crowned the winners of the East/ West Showdown. Following the games, we celebrated all together in the city!

Our fantastic regular season has come to a close. We went 5-2 in regular season play and won the USAFL Eastern Regional Championship. Next up, we travel to Racine, Wisconsin on October 14 for the USAFL Nationals. We will play combined with another team (to be announced) in Division II as we look to continue our winning season and hopefully bring back some hardware! Stay tuned!

The Lady Eagles continued their fantastic season this past weekend in Philadelphia, squaring off against the Philly Hawks and Boston Lady Demons.

After a bit of a late start, we took on the Demon/Hawks, in a high-scoring game that was neck and neck until the third quarter.  Despite nearing thunder, we finished out the third quarter with a narrow lead, only to endure a perilously long gap before the fourth quarter with a show of lightning and impressive rain.  But the long delay did not drag down the momentum, as we hammered in a couple more goals to secure the lead.

The Lady Eagles emerged victorious in our highest scoring game of the season, with goals from Molly, Mims, and Mariam – not to mention a hat trick by Baltimore’s Kristin Poti, earning her best on ground for the match. Strong play in the backline led by Bel and Ella and in the midfield by Kendall Jennings, Molly, and Alex allowed for good transitions up the field, creating many opportunities for the forward line. 

The Lady Eagles continue to grow stronger as a team with each match, and we hope to carry this momentum into the final stretch of the regular season and into Nationals in October. Our next game will be August 25 in Boston, where will face off once again with the Boston Lady Demons and Philly Hawks. Then on September 8, we head to New York for the East Coast/ West Coast Showdown, which should be a fun and exciting day of footy between all the women’s teams on the East Coast and San Francisco. Stay tuned!     

Yall. I am beaming.  I am so proud of the growth of the Baltimore/DC women’s team and what we’ve been able to achieve.

I started playing with the Baltimore-Washington Eagles in 2012 in the shadows of USA Freedom players Eileen Geoghegan, Judith Stein, and Karen Stablein. Since then we have been a consistently small group of strong players, but have had trouble getting past a critical number of players needed to field a full team.  Over the past year, with the help of some fresh leadership in DC’s Molly Halberstadt and Baltimore’s Kristin Poti, we have been able to recruit some fresh talent and make huge strides towards being able to field a full team.

Last year at Nationals, we had our highest numbers and wore our own uniforms at the tournament for the first time in my history with the club.  I was both proud of the Lady Eagles and heartbroken to be sidelined with an injury. This past weekend at Regionals in Philadelphia, though, I got to be a part of what our team has become.  With 14 players from DC and Baltimore, we paired up with a few Boston Demons players as the “Deeagles” (Demon Eagles? Docker Eagles? DemonDockerEagles?), and ultimately took home the cup after taking down Columbus/Philadelphia and New York in two well-matched, hard-fought games.

I cannot tell you how amazing it was to be on this field with this group of women.  Did you know we had FIVE first-time players? If you were on the sidelines you would never have guessed.  Between the players in their first games, other players who had only played one season before, and a small number of seasoned vets, we were able to link up across the field and make some magic happen.

Our first game we found ourselves lined up against a combined Columbus/Philly team in a game that was low scoring but fairly evenly matched on the field.  Strong competition between the teams occurred in the midfield with Kendall Jennings winning in the ruck with Karen Stablein, Molly Halberstadt, and Sam Worrall playing fiercely.  Baltimore player Kristin Poti took the first goal for the team.  Fearless play from our newest kept the momentum going and we were able to secure our first win of the season.

After watching the NY Magpies defeat the Columbus/Philadelphia team by a much larger margin than we had, Kendall revved us up with a pregame chat and we all agreed to keep the talk up on the field and play as hard as we could.  The defense with newbie Kristin Lough at fullback nearly shut out the Magpies, marking any ball that came her way and only letting one behind through the posts.

Two plays that put points on the board were beautiful illustrations of teamwork. Mariam Mehter, who debuted last year at Nationals, scooped up the ball and with quick thinking passed it along and shepherded away a NY player to clear the way for our first goal.  For another 8 minutes we play a tight nail-biting game of possession to protect our narrow lead over the Pies.  Then, Beth Kirkwood, another new player, finds herself in the forward line with the ball and Kristin telling her she’s all alone and has plenty of time!  Beth (admittedly suppressing panic) popped the ball into the goal square to set us up for a second goal that secured the game.  With a loud cheering section from Baltimore, DC, and Boston, whose men’s teams were done for the day, we finished out the last moments of the game and took straight to celebrating.

I know there are more highlights than this, but with a long day (about 5 hours between our two games…woof!) and my limited view of the field, these are the standout moments for me.  The one advantage of being injured at Nationals last year is that I “ran water” but basically got to get the best vantage points during all the games. I’m also not known for having an excellent attention span. Off-field highlights include finding a 4-leaf clover, giving it to Tracy for luck, which he promptly ate, finding a really fluffy moth trying to hide from the rain, oh, and drinking out of the championship cup!! Final moment of teamwork: Filling the trophy with cider for the first round so Poti could get a drink out of it!

I am so thrilled to see how much our team has grown, and I also want to thank the men’s teams for supporting us along the way!

xo,

Mims