Field hockey festival this week for area's best

PINE PLAINS — The last practice on the East Coast wound down for the Cross River Combo as head coaches Nanette Simione and Dick Meilinger watched their team from the sidelines last Sunday. The next Wednesday morning — yesterday to those reading the paper on Thanksgiving — most of the players will be on the 6:45 a.m. flight to Arizona, to compete in the 2010 U.S. National Field Hockey Festival, held for the first year in Arizona.

Both Simione and Meilinger coach school teams in the area during the fall, Simione at Rondout and Meilinger at Stissing Mountain High School in Pine Plains. When the Cross River Combo first formed in 2005, the team was made up of athletes playing for the two schools. Since then it has expanded, both in terms of schools represented and in the number of athletes interested in joining the team. Last year was the first year that Cross River held tryouts, and in essence the pool of candidates for this year’s team covers all schools in Sections 1 and 9.

Of the local talent, four Bomber athletes made the final cut for the team this year: seniors Kayla Shea and Robyn Downing and juniors Colleen Smith and Anna Woodward. Freshmen Monica Smith and sophomore Sarah Beam have been practicing with the team as alternates for Pine Plains; they will not take the trip to Arizona this year but are guaranteed a spot on the roster in 2011.

Joining the Stissing Mountain athletes in representing this paper’s coverage area is sophomore Claire Markonic from Webutuck. Markonic joined the team as an alternate but only a few weeks ago was asked to play in Arizona for the neighboring CNY squad. That team practices out of Binghamton, quite a distance to travel for practice, so Markonic has continued to train with Cross River. As an alternate, she will also automatically make the Combo’s roster next year.

The team forms during the summer and practices on weekends, right through the girls’ regular season for their school team and up until the festival. In the span of three days they will play twice a day in the age class of 19 and under. There are nearly 150 teams that will be competing in the U19 category, broken up into pools of seven.

The festival, which began in the early 1980s, has grown so popular that teams that joined after the year 2000 are only guaranteed to return if they win their pool the year before. After that it’s up to the luck of a lottery. Cross River won their pool the first year they entered and have had luck on their side ever since in the lottery drawing.

“The festival is an opportunity for the players to be seen by big college coaches,� Meilinger said, “and to demonstrate their skills.�

Simione added that roughly 100 college coaches attend the festival’s “Senior Night,� set up like a college fair. Cross River has had a number of alumni who have gone on to successful college field hockey careers. Simione said four of her five seniors last year are now playing college ball, and Meilinger said a number of Pine Plains players have also gone on to collegiate success.

The girls said playing with Cross River was much different than the school team, where their teammates are friends as well as athletes who have all for the most part grown up around each other.

“You really learn to work with girls on other teams,� said Smith. “We have a lot to learn from each other.�

This is the first year the Pine Plains and Webutuck athletes have gone to the festival in Arizona. They will return early next Monday morning, after a busy long weekend. But when asked what they wanted to do on their athletic vacations, the answer was simple.

“Win and have fun!� said Downing, to which the girls laughed and nodded approvingly.