Field Hockey Season Preview: Coach Williams digs in at Quince Orchard

By Ryan Mink
rmink@digitalsports.com

New Quince Orchard field hockey head coach Laura Williams hasn’t coached field hockey in 16 years.

During that time, previous coach Jenna Reis turned the Cougars into one of the state’s finest field hockey programs, a program that reached the state tournament eight times in the past 10 years while winning two titles, one in 2001 and another in 2006.

“I guess you can say I’m a rookie,” Williams said.

But thankfully for Williams, she has plenty of talent to work with once again this season. And all that talent means that despite the drastic change at head coach, the Cougars aren’t planning on giving up their throne atop Montgomery County.

“I didn’t know much about Jenna other than that she had a successful program here, so I didn’t know what I was walking into,” Williams said. “I didn’t want know much about the girls too much too soon. I wanted to form my own opinions. … The team is a lot better than I ever thought.”

It will be Williams’ first varsity head coaching job in her career. She previously coached junior varsity at Port Jefferson (Long Island) in New York. Her father was a football coach, her mom was a physical education teacher and her sister coached basketball.

Williams played field hockey for four years at Ohio University. She has been living in the Gaithersburg area for quite some time and put her name in as an interested coach at Gaithersburg. But there was not a position open and her name was forwarded to Quince Orchard.

“This is a dream come true,” Williams said. “My heart’s been in it, always has been.”

Williams brings with her a playing style that focuses more on passing the ball than Quince Orchard has in the past. Her three main points are fitness, communication and passing.

“It’s more passing and being smart rather than scrappy, fighting everywhere,” senior Alyssa Peterson said. “They both have their benefits.”

Despite graduating seven seniors, the team returns playmakers in Peterson, Kristina Anderson and Brooke Lee and a cast of talented youth in freshman forward Kelly Baick, sophomore front Leah Hunsinger, sophomore midfielder Maddy King and sophomore goalie Rachel Lipman. Baick is the younger sister of two Quince Orchard graduates who now play field hockey in college.

The girls said it’s a different feeling without Reis but that the transition has been smooth considering they all knew Reis was retiring at the end of last year.

Quince Orchard is coming off a tough loss to Severna Park in last year’s 4A state finals and has been eager to listen to new direction that could help them get past the Falcons should they meet again.

“We want to make it a third and we want to win this year,” Lee said. “Coming back without that trophy, I can’t even explain it. It was painful.”

“I expect us to be the same intense program we always have been,” Peterson added. “But we have a new coach this year so we’re kind of regrouping and reforming our game plan and hopefully we’re going to come out strong again and go back to the state finals.”

THEIR YEAR?: Churchill believes this is the year when it beats Quince Orchard. The Bulldogs have been eliminated in the playoffs by the Cougars the past two seasons but return a close-knit group of nine seniors, eight of which have been playing together since middle school.

"We actually have really high expectations for this season," senior Jenna Hawk said. "We have one of the best teams we've had in a while."

Only two seniors graduated from last year's team, which held off the Cougars in the first half of their regional final only to lose 2-0. Finishing games will be a point of emphasis this season.

"We think this is our year," senior Shannon Disbrow said.

BUILDING IT BACK: Bethesda-Chevy Chase reached the state finals for the 19th time last year but lost some key players from that team. The Barons graduated April Cahill and Kelly Merkl. Annie Cohen returns for B-CC after notching 17 goals and seven assists last season.

Whitman made it all the way to the state finals with a solid defense and returns defender Molly Finley and goalkeeper Hillary Wall. Maya Herm also returns to the offense after scoring 14 goals and assisting on seven others for the Vikings last season.

WOOT WOOT: Wootton is coming off a breakout season in which it captured its first regional crown in 14 years. In order to keep it up, the team will rely on midfielders Amy Eaton, Rachel Baron and Amanda Rebello. Goalkeeper Caitlin Zolet also only allowed 10 goals in 16 games.