The team has steadily improved since 2022 — a season in which the Blue Waves mustered only two wins. The three seniors on the team today were freshmen in 2022, just trying to find a way to rebuild a program that had suffered mightily following austerity that saw all sports cut for a year. Kyleigh Lennon, Abigail Maaiki and Emma Kennedy took their lumps and bruises that year but it was the first true step in the rebuild.

In 2023, the team improved its win total to three and last year they finished the season 5-8-1. If Copiague had shown up on time Tuesday afternoon for the final game of the season at Pulaski Street Sports Complex, Riverhead would have had a chance to finish their season 7-7 on Senior Day, but instead the matchup ended in a tie because the game was called due to darkness. It left their final record at 6-7-1.

“I’m super upset that this is how our senior game went,” Walsh-Edwards said. “These three girls deserved more than a half of a game in their last game of their careers. They worked so hard for the program. I couldn’t have asked for more out of them during their time playing here.”

Though playoffs weren’t really in the equation on the final day of the season, with Riverhead positioned 12th in the standings coming into the day, it could have been a proper farewell to the three. But had a few games over the course of the season gone a little differently, playoffs would absolutely be in the picture.

“The game that still bothers me to this day is the loss against Huntington,” Walsh-Edwards said. “We had so many chances to win that game.”

The matchup against Huntington, which ended up making the playoffs, was deadlocked at 0-0 heading into the fourth quarter. Both goalies were unstoppable that day. Riverhead’s Casey Hubbard made nine saves and Huntington’s Kathleen Cocoman came up with eight. But late in the fourth quarter, Huntington was able to make the breakthrough as Cassidy Harris found the back of the net for the game-winner. Had that game gone the other way, Riverhead could have potentially finished the season at 8-6.

“It would have been nice to make the playoffs this year, and it wasn’t because the girls didn’t work hard enough or anything like that,” Walsh-Edwards said, who will be retiring after coaching the varsity field hockey team for 25 years. “We just couldn’t stay healthy. We started the season with only 14 and we ended with 11. We had to play girls in spots they weren’t comfortable with and had to bring JV girls up that were essentially just playing at the middle school. We did the best we could.”

One of those injuries was to Gabriella Rossetti, who will undoubtedly be the main cog within the team in the years to come. She tore her meniscus in the third game of the season.

“If we had a full team all year and won some of those closer games, who knows how things would have ended up,” Walsh-Edwards said. “Playing in the playoffs is a much different atmosphere and we would have been up against teams that practice all year long, with girls playing travel. But it would have been nice to say we did make the playoffs again.”

Even though Walsh-Edwards is retiring from the program she gave so much of her life to, she doesn’t think she can fully step away. After being a perennial playoff team in her heyday, she wanted nothing more to return the field hockey program to prominence.

“I think we made tremendous strides over the last few years,” Walsh-Edwards said. “I’ll be around. I don’t know in what capacity, but after you’ve done something for so long, it’s hard to just fully step away.”

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Yes, that Ward Melville.

Mighty Ward Melville.

The Ward Melville that reached the Suffolk County Class A final last year. The Ward Melville that is seeded second this year in Suffolk Division I. The Ward Melville that is one of the best teams in the county.

Under just about any circumstances, that would be a rough way to christen a season. But, taking things a few steps further, consider where Riverhead is.

Cheryl Walsh-Edwards said this is the youngest and least experienced of the Riverhead teams she has coached in her 23 years in charge. The Blue Waves, seeded 14th among Division I’s 22 teams, return only one starter, Charlotte Dow, from the 2021 team that went 6-8 and barely missed making the playoffs.

Dow is one of only three seniors, Vanessa Leon and Ashley Monticciolo being the others. Aside from Dow, the only other players with any varsity experience before this year are Kerry Stavracos, Morgan Stromski, Isabella Vene and Leon. Three players — Emma Kennedy, Kyleigh Lennon and Abigail Maaiki — have made the Herculean leap from middle school field hockey straight to the varsity.

And if all that isn’t enough, this is the smallest roster Walsh-Edwards has ever had: 15 players.

So, enter Ward Melville into the equation Friday at Pulaski Sports Complex and do the math. It added up to a 6-0 Ward Melville win. For a start-of-the-season test, this was the field hockey version of an advanced algebra pop quiz on the first day of school.

With only one scrimmage against Southampton behind them, the Blue Waves took the field against Ward Melville. “I was shaking,” said Lennon.

Walsh-Edwards, in a pregame interview, said her players were “very excited, but again, you know, it’s like I’ve never had a team where the bulk of them have never played in a varsity game, so I don’t think they quite know what to expect.”

She added, “You can’t even compare JV to varsity. The speed of the game is just totally different.”

Ward Melville boxed Riverhead in its own half of the field for virtually the entire first quarter. It took only 3 minutes, 53 seconds before Alexa Kidd scored the first of her three goals off a scramble with the goalie, Stavracos, on the ground. Kyra Gianelli (assisted by Grace Mulham) and Peyton Phillips followed with goals to give the girls in green a 3-0 lead through 15 minutes.

Riverhead showed improvement in the second quarter, but still conceded goals by Kidd and Julia Rotoli in the final 23.5 seconds of the quarter for a 5-0 score by halftime.

In a show of sportsmanship, Ward Melville coach Shannon Sioss had her team ease off and not press the attack in the second half. Kidd scored her third goal off a pass from Phillips with 20 seconds left.

Ward Melville took 20 shots (Stavracos saved 11 of them) and earned 20 penalty corners while holding Riverhead without a shot or a penalty corner.

“Well, I knew it was gonna be a tough game, but I think the main focus of the game was to improve,” said Dow.

As one of the players making the huge jump from middle school to varsity, Lennon said: “There’s a big difference, like the game was much faster. There’s a lot more running. It’s a lot more, but I think we played good considering they’re one of the better teams.”

Riverhead has a true asset in Dow. An all-division forward last year, Dow has been moved to center midfield where her high work rate is being put to use. “It’s a lot more running,” she said.

Walsh-Edwards spelled out what she is looking for from her young players. “To me, it’s just going out and working really hard and not giving up, you know, regardless of what the score is,” she said. “That’s the most important thing to me, build the character a little bit and you got to play until the end of the game, you know, and some games you are gonna win and some you’re not.”

All things considered, Dow said, “I think for our first game of the season it was exceptional, and we definitely have a good season ahead of us, a lot to improve upon, and I can’t wait to see us at the end [of the season] and how good we become.”

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