On a warm, windy August afternoon, Golden’s girls field hockey team practiced just like your typical high school sports team.
Except this isn’t your typical high school sports team. For one, they play a sport that is still rare in Colorado, with only 14 high schools in the state carrying field hockey programs.
“You get the funniest looks when you tell people you play field hockey,” sophomore Kelsea Wallace said. “You tell them it’s sort of like ice hockey on grass with a little bit of lacrosse…”
Secondly, this is the only field hockey team in Jefferson County with players coming from area high schools including Golden, Ralston Valley, Mullen and Green Mountain.
“They’re a good group, though it can be a little tough for them to blend in,” said coach Devon Holcomb, in her fifth season at Golden. “They’re all trying to find their voices with one another. A lot of them don’t even know everybody’s name yet.”
Atypical as it might seem, it works — and works well. Holcomb has built the program from the ground up, from a club sport in its first year to a Colorado High School Activities Association participant competing with the likes of Cherry Creek and Kent Denver.
“Our first year was kind of a losing year. We played a lot of defense,” Holcomb said. “But after that we really developed.”
Now Golden has over 20 girls on its roster, and this year will be the program’s first with a varsity and junior varsity team. Having girls from all over Jefferson County can be a challenge.
“It takes time,” she said. “But by the end of the season you would have never known. And I think they make some really good friends.”
Her players agreed.
“We’re a very tight-knit group,” said Caroline Wong, a junior from Golden. “I think because we don’t all go to school together, we don’t have any clicks or social groups that other teams deal with.”
“I think it works well,” said Brian Wallace, father of Kelsea and sophomore Gabrielle. “They might be from different schools but you’d never know it.”
While almost half the team goes to school at Ralston Valley in Arvada, other players bring themselves to practice alone each day, including Green Mountain’s Andrea Dameron.
“For Andrea to come from Green Mountain by herself — and she doesn’t know a soul — is just amazing,” said Holcomb.
As the team gels, Holcomb hopes its win total will increase as well. Golden finished last in the 14-team, statewide conference in 2007 with a record of 1-12-2.
But after what she called a “rebuilding year,” Holcomb says the team has a simple goal for 2008: to make the playoffs, which she says is “absolutely do-able.”
After nearly shocking one of the state’s best teams, Kent Denver, in the postseason play-in game a year ago, the players agree that taking the next step is possible.
“We were only down 1-0 at the half,” Wong said of the Kent Denver game, in which Kent went on to win the game 3-0. “I think we scared the crap out of them.”
For a team that does things a little differently than most, a trip to the playoffs — probably wouldn’t be so strange at all.