Barker Makes Statement With Big N-O Win At Roy-Hart

The Roy-Hart High School girls field hockey team was flying high to start the season and entered a showdown on Thursday with visions of knocking off rival Barker for the first time in more than a decade.

It didn’t take long for the Raiders to show they’re still a force.

Barker scored twice in the game’s first six minutes and then held on for a 2-1 win over the Rams in a big Niagara-Orleans League game on Thursday afternoon.

“We were just fired up,” Barker junior attacker Katrina Clare said. “We knew they were going to come out strong and we wanted to come out stronger and we did it.”

The result muddied up the N-O standings quite a bit with the Raiders and Rams now tied for first with 5-1 league marks. Akron and Medina each have two league losses.

Barker won the N-O each year from 2008-16 before Akron knocked the Raiders off their perch last season. A mid-September loss in the rematch against Akron had some thinking the young team – which lost 10 players to graduation – was going to have to wait a while to get back to the top.

“We have a strong tradition of success at Barker and this keeps that going,” junior Ciara Gregoire said. “We’re going to keep going no matter what happens – we lost to Akron, but we came in here and kept that tradition going.”

It was Gregoire who ended a 392-minute shutout streak to start the season for Roy-Hart goalkeeper Jamie Bower when she scored her fifth of the season from Emily Wagner. A little more than two minutes later, Clare scored what she called her “dream goal.”

“When I go to bed at night, this is how I want to score a goal,” she said of her 12th of the year. “I pulled right, was in the circle and I just ripped it and it went right in the corner. It was beautiful. It’s everything I live for.”

Miah Glena scored in the middle of the second half to bring Roy-Hart within one and the Rams put on all kinds of pressure in the final minutes but couldn’t get the equalizer.

“I’ve gotten after our defense this season,” Barker coach Jeff Costello said after his team moved to 6-1. “I’m proud of them, they really did the job today and that defense at the end is what kept us there.”

Meanwhile, the Rams lost much more than a game in that nightmarish start. In the opening minutes, Roy-Hart senior Jayden Townsend went down with what coach Colleen Albee said is a possible ACL injury. Shortly thereafter, Barker scored its two goals.

“I think, 100 percent, it took them off their game a little bit,” Albee said after her team fell to 7-1 overall, 5-1 in league play. “But they fought hard in the second half. Obviously they’re worried about their teammate but they played their heart out.”