“It’s like déjà vu all over again.” – Yogi Berra

The Northampton field hockey team’s District XI 3A quarterfinal round game against Easton last Thursday felt eerily similar to the contest the schools played in 2019.

Consider the following parallels:

The K-Kids came in as decided underdogs after losing 3-0 to the Rovers earlier in the season. Easton scored the first goal. Northampton came back and took a 2-1 lead. The game went into a second sudden death overtime before the Rovers broke the Kids’ hearts and advanced to the district semifinals.

This year’s game ended with a final score of 3-2, each team scoring one fewer goal than they had two earlier. It marks the fourth-straight year that Easton has ended the K-Kids’ season.

Thursday’s loss may have been even more difficult to stomach as there were only 52 seconds left in the second overtime before the game would have gone to a penalty shootout. Head coach Carrie Saul lamented, “Fifty-two seconds that will haunt me forever.”

The circumstances of the contest’s denouement were also hard to take. The K-Kids were a player down in the 7-on-7 overtime after receiving a yellow card with 2:24 left in OT 2. However, they earned a corner which may have been their undoing. When the Rovers gained possession, all but one of Northampton’s field players were trapped in the circle, giving Easton a 3-on-1 break the other way. They were able to set up a shot that goalie Kadee Schrader had no chance to stop.

Schrader, the All-EPC first team goalkeeper, did her part to give the K-Kids a chance to pull the upset. She racked up 31 saves, compared to 3 for her Easton counterpart.

Both Northampton goals were scored in the third period. Kendall Iasiello converted a corner at 10:43. At 8:37, Eliza Rogerson swept the ball past the Rover keeper from the prone position. Taylor Kranzley assisted on both goals.

The game marked the end of the field hockey careers of the six Konkrete Kids seniors, Alivia Bankos, Kenadee Carreras, Kranzley, Brooke Peters, Rogerson, and Maddie Siegfried.

Saul gave her final thoughts on the outgoing group.

“This senior class was a lot of fun,” she said. “Our season had hills and valleys, but the end of the season was the most exciting, consistent and best hockey this team produced this season. I knew they had heart and determination to finish on a high note, and that is what they did.”