Avery Peterson is only a junior but she sees herself filling the big sister role for the Princeton High field hockey team.

“Last year, two captains, Lucy Herring and Campbell McDonald, were on my line and I was the underclassman,” said Peterson.

“Now as an upperclassman, I take it as my role to help the other forwards. I hope to improve Maggie Lynch, who is a senior, and Mariana Lopez-Ona. I look at them as little sisters this year. I feel that I really need to step up and be the one the team can rely on.”

Last Saturday morning against visiting Ewing, Peterson stepped up early tallying a goal four minutes into the contest, setting the tone as PHS cruised to a 6-0 win over the Blue Devils.

“This was our homecoming game so we wanted to come out with a strong mentality,” said Peterson. “That goal was more of a scrum on the goal line and I pushed it in. I had a lot of help from Mariana Lopez-Ona and Jordyn Cane.”

In Peterson’s view, PHS is coming on strong, having learned lessons from early-season defeats to Lawrenceville, Allentown, and Peddie.

“We started with some really tough games; it helped our mentality and fired us up,” said Peterson, who added two more goals last Monday as PHS edged Hopewell Valley 3-2 to win its third straight game and improve to 5-3-1.

“We took those losses as learning opportunities and we continued to expand on things that we learned from each game. It has really helped us that we had strong challenges in the beginning.”

PHS head coach Heather Serverson is pleased with the way Peterson has expanded her role on the team.

“I think that being the only returning forward, she has a lot of weight on her shoulders and she is starting to relax a bit,” said Serverson.

“She has been on lately, she is getting a lot of tips. Basically the other forwards are all brand new and she is trying to help them all along while trying to  perform well herself. It is a lot of work that she has to do. She is doing very well.”

In reflecting on the win over Ewing, Serverson saw it as a positive step for her squad.

“In general, they did improve on some things we have been working on from the losses we have already had,” said Serverson.

“It is the passing game and not dribbling so much and really making sure you look up and are aware of the next pass before you have the ball. Those things were good today and I think we executed some corners well.”

Senior midfielder and Lehigh-bound Trish Reilly has been executing particularly well for PHS.

“Trish is our anchor in the middle, she is kind of like the quarterback who plays halfway up in the group,” explained Serverson of Reilly, who tallied two goals and an assist in the win over Ewing and then contributed a goal in the victory over HoVal.

“She is able to keep everyone calm, she is a great communicator. She has a good mind-set for someone who needs to make others look good, she understands that and she isn’t always trying to score the goals.”

Another player who has been looking good for the Little Tigers is versatile junior Jordyn Cane, who had two goals against Ewing and an assist against HoVal.

“We have been moving Jordyn around a little bit; she is the kind of player who can do that so she has been a good person to have on the team,” added Serverson.

“She is willing to do whatever I need her to do and she always steps up to the plate. I am happy with the way she is playing.”

Overall, Serverson is happy with her team’s progress. “I think we are starting to find our new normal, which is what we have been working on this season,” said Serverson, whose team hosts WW/P-N on September 30 before playing at WW/P-S on October 2, and at Hun on October 5.

“We lost key players and that is hard. I think they relied on them a lot more than I thought they did. I think the key piece of that is that they played together so long. It is more than losing the players, we lost their tightness on the field.”

Peterson, for her part, feels that PHS is developing into a tight unit. “It is a newer team, almost half the team is new girls,” said Peterson. “I think we are really coming together now especially with those hard losses in the beginning.”