Delmarva Christian field hockey opened its season in thrilling fashion with a 3-2 overtime win over Tome School at Sandhill Fields Sept. 5.

“Everybody dug deep and pushed through,” said coach Laura Balback. “[They] never gave up, and it's what we've been working on this whole time.”

Freshman Olivia Balback scored an unassisted goal to open scoring in the first quarter. Classmate Addison Price doubled the lead late in the second quarter when she slammed home a pass from senior Haley Jones. 

“It's really amazing to see how much we've grown, especially over the past couple years,” Jones said. “We've had a lot more opportunities, we have a lot better stick work and our corners are looking a lot better than before.”

The senior said it's been a joy working with the young girls up top and thinks last year’s quality of opponents helped the greenhorns.

“They've put up a really good fight and especially now, being freshmen, they've improved so much since last year,” Jones said.

The Titans wouldn’t go down without a fight, storming back to even things up 2-2 in the fourth quarter. Although the Royals had 11 penalty corners compared to Tome’s two, the Royals only edged the Titans 14-11 in total shots. Many of Tome’s chances came late in the final quarter.

The back line ultimately held strong, playing great defense and getting a big game in the cage from eighth-grader Carsyn Riddle, who collected nine stops.

“It was a lot of fun today,” said senior Chloe Wilkerson. “We all played really hard, and I'm pretty proud of the way that all the defense played today.”

With the back line secured, the Royals went to work on offense to begin the extra frame. They didn’t need to clock in for too long as they immediately set up in front of the cage. Making it a hat trick for the freshman class, Anaiah Mulhern took a pass from Balback and slammed home the game-winner for a 3-2 win.

“In the clutch, we had a lot of great passing and communication,” Mulhern said. “I was just really happy that all of our teamwork worked out.”

Delmarva Christian travels to Seaford for a game at 4 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 9, and has a chance to start 2-0 for the first time in program history.