PIPING UP: Hun School field hockey player Piper Morey controls the ball in recent action. Last Wednesday, freshman forward Morey tallied two goals to help Hun defeat Pennington 3-1. The Raiders, now 3-2, play at Stuart County Day School on September 27. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

By Bill Alden

Joining the Hun School field hockey program this fall as a freshmen, Piper Morey has faced some major adjustments in making the transition to the high school game.

“Being one of the youngest on the team is the biggest challenge,” said Morey.

“I haven’t played with this level of skill before, going from middle school field hockey to high school is a big challenge.”

Last Wednesday against visiting Pennington, Morey displayed her skill, tallying two goals in a 2:40 span in the first quarter to give Hun a 3-0 lead on the way to a 3-1 victory.

On her first goal which came 3:55 into the game, Morey got open in the circle and showed her nose for the ball.

“We go over it a lot in practice, that third player getting high,” said Morey. “I saw her (Alexa Cavalli) coming down and I knew I had to get down there. The goalie makes a decision to play her or play me. When I saw the goalie make that decision, I knew I had to get my stick down and I just kind of connected.”

Minutes later, Morey struck again with some heads-up stickwork.

“When she (Phoebe Thielmann) hit it, I knew where to be,” recalled Morey. “We practice that a lot too, getting our sticks down and getting those tips. It is not just going to be the straight shot. It is going to be the tips, like the little things that get it in. I just tried to make contact with the ball. It was just a lucky tip — I was just trying to redirect it.”

Things did a get a little dicey for Hun as Pennington scored early in the third quarter to make it a 3-1 game and tightened up its defense. The Raiders, though, kept their heads and held off the Red Hawks.

“After that first goal we knew we had to step it up and build each other up,” said Morey. “It is just one goal and we can get it back. We just knew that we had to keep each other accountable.”

Morey has focused on being accountable to her teammates, citing the influence of her parents. Her father, Sean, was a record-breaking receiver for the Brown football team who played nine seasons in the NFL while her mother, Cara, was a field hockey and ice hockey star at Brown and is now the head coach of the Princeton University women’s ice hockey team.

“They don’t really talk to me about my skill or anything, that will come,” said Morey. “They really talk to me about my work ethic and how the best thing to be as an athlete is to work hard. I always try to have a strong work ethic through all of the games because coaches will always see how hard you work and how good of a teammate you are. They are always big on teamwork and working together, building each other up, just like coach Arndt (Hun head coach Tracey Arndt) is.”

This fall, Morey is working particularly hard as she is juggling club ice hockey with Hun field hockey.

“Usually I just got straight from this practice to my next practice,” said Morey, who skates for the Junior Flyers. “I get a lot of my work done in the car. You have to know how to manage your schoolwork, your ice hockey, and field hockey all at the same time. There is a lot of planning with the coaches, like what games you are going to be able to be late to. You have to really manage your time; time management is a really big part that goes into two sports.”

Hun head coach Arndt is having a great time coaching Morey.

“I am pretty lucky that I have gotten to see Piper since she was in sixth grade,” said Arndt. “What I know of her is that she is just a super personable kid. I have always been really excited to get to work with her because every time I have seen her, she gives everything she has. Her finishing today was just a culmination of her athleticism, her coachability, and her effort. She is a gamer.”

The exciting start by the Raiders in the win over Pennington was the product of a shrewd game plan.

“We really tried to work the ball down the sideline as much as we can because their middle is really, really strong,” said Arndt. “We thought if we could work through the outside, we might be able to get it in. We had worked on some really great passing patterns and they have it. It was so nice for it to all come together and then the next piece of it is just staying poised for the rest of the game.”

Junior midfielder Phoebe Thielmann has been giving the Raiders some very good work, scoring the first goal against the Red Hawks and assisting on Morey’s second goal.

“We adjusted people a little bit and that moved Phoebe up to a little bit of a more center mid role,” said Arndt. “She is able to create nice movement with Maya [Zahlan] and our outside mids, so she is doing what we need her to do which is control the center on both attack and defense. She is a coach’s dream — I am just so excited that I get two more years with her. Maya has also been doing a really good job, she and Phoebe work really well together.”

Sophomore Aspen Swanson has carved out a key role on the Raider back line.

“I have to give a shout out to Aspen, she is our right back and her role is very important,” said Arndt. “She just started playing hockey before preseason. She is athletic, but most importantly she is extremely coachable. We keep saying that we think if you are coachable, if you listen and you do the hard work, we will get you where we need you to be.”

Arndt is thrilled with the work ethic she is seeing across the board from her squad.

“We are only as good as the results that we have when we play the game; my first year here we were 3-13,” said Arndt, whose team moved to 3-2 with a 5-0 loss to the Nichols School (N.Y.) last Friday in the Max Field Hockey National High School Invitational at Conshohocken, Pa.

“By virtue of bringing in hardworking girls and having someone like Piper coming up from the middle school and developing the youth a little bit, we are in a position that we have a really strong core of players who are committed to each other and trust each other. We have a mantra which is “Play with HEART,” which is an acronym for honor, effort, attitude, respect, and trust. We just keep going back to that because someone is going to make a mistake, someone is going to mess up the play, but we just need to rally around each other. They believe in each other and that part is really fun. It is really early in the season; if we can keep playing with some of that momentum that we have I am excited to see what happens day by day.”

Morey, for her part, believes that Hun can do some good things this fall.

“We really just have to play together as a team and keep each other lifted up,” said Morey. “We need to get each other ready before games and make sure that everybody is set. Whatever happens up in school, it all stops when we get down to the turf; when you get down the turf, it is like a new start.”