EAST BRUNSWICK - At the start of the Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament, the Metuchen High School field hockey team knew it was the team to beat.
The top-seeded Bulldogs, which won their first GMC Tournament title in 11 years last year, entered Thursday night's final undefeated, and they knew that third-seeded Old Bridge was going to throw everything it had at them.
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"I think that it definitely pushed us going into this season," Metuchen senior Maeve Kenny said of last year's championship. "I think that we realized a lot of teams would see us with a target on our backs from last year. Every year whoever wins everyone wants to take them down obviously, and being that we're undefeated this year as well so far I think that was even a bigger target because everyone wants to be the team that beats the undefeated team."
The Knights (12-6) put forth a valiant effort, but the Bulldogs (15-0) prevailed with a 2-1 victory to win their second-straight GMC Tournament title.
"It feels great. I think it shows that we're hardworking, that even if we lose players we have strength among us," Metuchen goalie Kamryn Chaudry said. "I don't think that there's one player that's better than the others, but we all work together and we're all very strong, which is why we're such tough competitors."
The Bulldogs scored first and scored fast as Kenny netted the first goal just under four minutes into the game. She scored again about seven minutes later to give the Bulldogs a 2-0 lead with just under 19 minutes left in the first half.
Unfortunately for Metuchen, which has averaged close to five goals a game this season, the two goals were all the offense it was able to muster against the Old Bridge defense.
"We were expecting a hard game," said Chaudry, who finished with 13 saves. "We knew they were very aggressive competitors and we also knew going into this that we had won against them twice, so we just wanted to keep up our intensity and not let whatever aggression come out on us, get us down and keep pushing throughout the entire game."
With 39 seconds remaining in the first half, the Knights made it a game. Isabella Marte inserted the ball on a corner, which found its way to Abigail Zimmerlink, who quickly deposited it past Chaudry to cut the lead to 2-1.
"Definitely to just keep up the talking, communication with our team to make sure people drop back," Chaudry said of how the team reacted to Old Bridge's goal. "I try to not let the goals get in my head because it doesn't matter, you just have to keep going and keep it out no matter what."
Old Bridge was still riding the momentum at the start of the second half and spent a majority of the opening minutes in Metuchen's zone, which caused head coach Beth McLaughlin to call a timeout. The quick break had the desired effect as the Bulldogs returned to first half form and kept the Knights from scoring the equalizer.
Old Bridge outshot Metuchen 14-8 and took seven penalty corners to the Bulldogs' four. Emma Bennett recorded six saves for the Knights.
"We stayed cool, collected. We tried to do that throughout the whole thing but that was definitely the attitude coming in because of last year and everything, so yeah we came in with confidence," Kenny said. "We definitely took them seriously, more seriously than we had before because it's such a big deal this game. The games prior we were looking to have fun and just be ourselves and utilize everyone on the field, but today we really just wanted to stay focused and get what we wanted at the end of the day, which was totally again with the attitude."
Staff Writer Lauren Knego: lknego@gannettnj.com; on Twitter: @laurenknego
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