Upper Arlington is a state field hockey champion for the first time. The Golden Bears beat Columbus Academy 3-1 on Saturday, November 7, in the Ohio High School Athletic Association state final at Thomas Worthington, closing a six-game winning streak with the trophy that had eluded the program in two previous trips to the final, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
The Bears struck first, exactly as they planned. Sophomore Charlie Rogers scored off a penalty corner in the first quarter, fed by senior forward Caroline Overmyer, and Overmyer scored the eventual game-winner late in the same quarter to give Upper Arlington a 2-0 lead. Overmyer finished the season as the Bears’ leader in both goals, with 13, and assists, with 17, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
Academy cut the lead in half in the third quarter. Senior midfielder Charlotte Kurtz scored with five minutes left in the period to make it 2-1, giving the Vikings their first of only three shots on goal all afternoon, according to The Columbus Dispatch. The goal set up a tense finish between two central Ohio rivals who know each other well.
Sophomore forward Anya Haney restored the two-goal cushion with 12:16 left in the game, scoring off a deflection from junior midfielder Emmy Archer. From there, the Bears’ defense — the backbone of the team all season — had to survive one last Academy push.
That push came midway through the fourth quarter, when Academy earned four consecutive penalty corners. Junior midfielder Sloane Bunker, a Miami University commit, took two shots off her right shin while defending Academy’s top player, Georgetown commit Katie Neviaser, and Upper Arlington turned away all four corners, The Columbus Dispatch reported. “Katie is super good,” Bunker told The Columbus Dispatch. “She is going to take that fast shot, but I told ‘Homie’ [UA coach Homero Pardi], I was ready to put my body on the line.”
Sophomore goalie Peyton Garvey made two saves for the Bears, while senior Lila Parish stopped one shot for Academy. Upper Arlington finished 17-5-1, allowing only one goal in four postseason games. Academy, which was seeking its 13th state title in its 25th tournament appearance — both state records, according to The Columbus Dispatch — finished 18-3-1 as a 12-game winning streak ended.
“They threw everything they had at us [in the fourth quarter]; they had us on the ropes,” Pardi told The Columbus Dispatch. “It paid off to get that two-goal lead in the first quarter and manage it from there. Our pregame meeting was about striking first and making sure to build that lead as quick as possible.”
The championship also settled a season series. The Bears beat Academy by the same 3-1 score on September 16 — the Vikings’ most recent loss before Saturday — but in that game Academy scored first. Not letting that happen again was at the front of Upper Arlington’s game plan, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on
What we know: Upper Arlington won its first state field hockey title in three finals appearances, having lost in the final in 1990 and again last year, and became the 12th consecutive state champion from the Columbus area, according to The Columbus Dispatch. The final was the fifth in six years between central Ohio teams, and at least one local team has reached the championship game in 28 consecutive seasons. What we’re still waiting on: the OHSAA’s official all-tournament honors and the final statewide statistics for both teams.
It was a championship Saturday across the area’s fall sports. Earlier in the day at Fortress Obetz, Teays Valley’s Reese Galinger won the Division I state cross country title, and the Milford girls won their first-ever state cross country championship.
Field hockey is the one OHSAA fall championship that central Ohio has owned for more than a decade, and Saturday’s final showed why. Both finalists came from the Columbus area, both had lost only twice in their last three games combined entering the day, and the game turned on the two things that decide finals in the sport: penalty corners and goaltending in the fourth quarter. Upper Arlington converted its early corners into a lead and then defended four straight late corners without breaking, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
What happens next is a celebration years in the making. The Golden Bears, who finished last season as state runners-up, will bring home the program’s first championship trophy, and a young core — Rogers, Haney and Garvey are all sophomores, and Bunker is a junior — means Upper Arlington should open next fall among the favorites to do it again.
Photo: c w, CC BY