Entertaining and a bit maddening. The women’s version of the game usually shows a different side of the sport than the men’s . . . more emphasis on passing, finesse around the cage and frankly a better face-off for my money. And a bigger respect for the health of your competition. At least until the know-it-all’s got into the act over the summer. That last one is the one that I watched carefully for last night, which explains the maddening comment.  There is a huge emphasis on safety in the girls’ game and it is most easily seen by the attention paid to the halo around the head and neck.  The rules specifically target that area as being ‘stick-free’, so you don’t try to check the ball if the carrier’s stick is in that area. Last night there were (at least to me) a lot of ‘halo’ infractions, as it shouldn’t be.  What we need to look for going forward is whether that number of infractions increases because of the perception that the players are better protected with the FHSAA ruling.  Last night one of the referees told me that a player had her goggles BROKEN by a stick check, a first in her lengthy career as a referee. FHSAA, you are being put on notice.  If you think your summer ruling was the end of the discussion you better hope injury statistics go down.  If not you will have a lot of explaining to do. ———-     PJP and Martin County played an entertaining and intense game last night that came down to Martin being able to convert better on offense in the second half to overcome what I counted as 33 infractions.  That was balanced off by committing only 7 turnovers.  Both goalies played very well and kept penalty restart conversions to a minimum. Pope’s offense was not able to produce enough open looks and relied on more one-on-one efforts while Martin was able to find space in the middle on back door cuts. Martin had 6 of their 9 goals assisted while I don’t have any assists for PJP.  Pope turned it over 12 times and that differential ended up making a difference as a couple of those were pretty much unforced drops that came at inopportune times in the second half. Blaire White and Quinn Roe both scored hat tricks for Martin while Emily Kowalik carried the load for Pope with 6 goals.  Faceoffs were equal at 9 but Martin won a couple late when they needed to blunt PJP’s momentum.  

  Pope grabbed the early lead just 58 seconds into the game, at 24:02 as Brianna McCaffery scored off the penalty restart (if you are new to the women’s game an infraction committed in the scoring area results in a restart from an area that looks like a baseball infield with home plate as the goal . . . the restart would come from the back of the infield based on where the foul occurred and the defense basically starts from behind and to the side of the ball carrier without anyone in front of her) with the right handed shot that the goalie got a piece of but couldn’t keep from trickling into the net. At 18:24 Martin got the equalizer as Lily Linehan made a one-hand catch at top speed cutting down the middle from Savannah Steckler on the left wing and she found the top left corner with the right hand.  PJP regained the lead at 17:16 as Kowalik worked from right GLE to the crease area, turned right and found the short side high.  MC then scored twice in a little over a minute to go up 3-2.  At 16:47 White scored her first unassisted as she broke in from right GLE to the crease area and hit the high, far corner and at 15:26 Roe scored her first off the penalty restart, running down the right wing straight to the cage and hitting the short side high.  The teams settled down and both goalies and team defenses stiffened.  But with just  seconds on the clock Kowalik took advantage of a penalty restart in the top middle of the zone and hit the high left side of the cage to tie it at 3-3 at halftime.     Martin started the second half strongly, outscoring PJP 4-0 for nearly the first 11 minutes of the second half to rush out to a 7-3 lead.  Just 24 seconds into the half Natalie Groth took Linehan’s behind the net pass on the crease and she hit the far right corner for 4-3.  At 18:49 White cut down the left middle and took a left GLE feed (sorry, didn’t catch who got the assist) and finished in the low left corner.  That was followed at 15:53 White scored again, off the fast break, as Groth passed to her on the left wing with White finishing low and at 14:35 Roe completed the run with a similar play to White’s 18:49 score and just like that it was 7-3. Kowalik got that one back just 24 seconds later as she took off down the left wing and beat the defense to the crease before going high to the middle of the cage.  Then at 8:56 she cut the lead further to 2 as she took advantage of a penalty restart on the left side, cut towards the middle of the zone and scored while falling.  

  But less than two minutes later Martin pretty much put the game away with two scores in 33 seconds.  Roe took advantage of a penalty restart after a key faceoff win and scored on the left side, hitting the top right corner and just 27 seconds later Samantha Singer received a Morgan Bakinowski feed in the middle and hit the top left corner to make it 9-5.  Kowalik responded twice in 13 seconds to give PJP hope late but MC was able to pretty much run out and defend the remaining time and PJP was not able to get off a good scoring attempt and when goalie Angie Benson made one final save on a restart with 10 seconds left that sealed the deal and Martin had earned their 9-7 win. Martin County returns to action at home on Wednesday against Jensen Beach and Pope John Paul travels Wednesday to Boca Raton.       Team Statistics   Faceoffs:  9 apiece Shots:  PJP 21 – MC 19 Shots on Goal:  MC 15 – PJP 14 Turnovers:  PJP 12 – MC 7 Infractions:  MC 33 (including 3 yellow cards) – PJP 21   Individual Statistics   Martin County Blaire White and Quinn Roe  3G each Natalie Groth  1G/2A Lily Linehan  1G/1A Samantha Singer  1G Savannah Steckler and Morgan Bakinowski  1A each   Pope John Paul Emily Kowalik  6G Brianna McCaffery  1G   Thanks to Coach Atkins and Coach Livings for talking to me before the game and providing me with the rosters.