NORTH EAST — The Trojans head to Carroll County this afternoon for the quarterfinal round of the Class 1A state field hockey tournament.
Kent County advances with a come-from-behind 3-1 win Tuesday night at North East to capture the South I Region title — its first region championship since 2019.
The Trojans have won four of their last five games after an 0-8 start, and Tuesday night’s victory summoned feelings of both relief and disbelief.
There’s been some lean years between the 2019 and 2025 championships.
Coming out of the spring-fall 2021 COVID seasons, Kent County was winless in 2022 and ’23, won just one game in ’24 and, as mentioned above, opened this season with eight losses in a row against Eastern Shore powerhouses Kent Island, Queen Anne’s and Pocomoke — which coincidentally also have advanced to their respective quarterfinal-round games today — as well as Easton and Stephen Decatur.
A good case could be made that Kent County plays one of the most challenging schedules among all Class 1A schools in Maryland.
But here the Trojans are, still playing after pulling off two upsets in their region tournament as the lowest seed.
“Winning regionals is such an amazing and accomplishing feeling especially after having 2 straight years with no wins. It makes me feel like all the hard work we have put in paid off and is recognized by so many people,” senior co-captain Tess Fuchs told The Evening Enterprise in a text message.
“What has made this team so special is the bond and chemistry we all have,” she said. “We truly are a team and we work so well together.”
It was cold and windy Tuesday night in North East, where the host Indians took a page out of the Trojans’ playbook by asserting themselves early.
Kent did not get a shot in the opening 15 minutes, and its first scoring opportunity came with a penalty corner with 45 seconds remaining in the frame.
By that time, North East already had three legitimate scoring chances — a deflection that sailed wide right with just 1 minute, 22 seconds elapsed, a centering pass that scooted across the mouth of the goal from right to left and then over the end line with 3:05 to go, and in between the sequence that produced the game’s first goal.
Taylor Zellner drilled a shot from the top of the circle off a penalty corner insert with 8:36 to play in the first quarter for a 1-0 North East lead.
The Trojans would pitch a shutout the rest of the way, playing the kind of lockdown defense that characterized their four late-season victories when they allowed just one goal — Zellner’s disputed strike that appeared to have been taken from outside the circle.
Kent County sophomore Abby Gallo evened the score with 8:04 remaining in the half when she zigged, zagged, zigged and zagged again to eliminate several North East defenders and then swatted the ball into the back of the cage.
Gallo, the Trojans’ sturdy center midfielder, had their first shot of the night about a minute and a half earlier but it sailed wide right.
Ratcheting up their intensity, the Trojans simply took over in the second half.
They earned back-to-back corners in the third minute of the third quarter, and the second one produced what would prove to be the winning goal — senior McKenna Messick deflecting a shot taken by Fuchs with 12:29 remaining in the quarter. It all started with sophomore Mali Wirth’s insert.
North East did not get off a shot in the quarter, and earned only one penalty corner.
Meantime, Kent nearly added to its lead with 7:40 to go on a reverse stick shot from freshman Keelyn Clayton that was kicked away by North East’s Zabdi Galdamez.
Fuchs sealed the Trojans’ victory with an insurance goal 2:09 into the final frame, capitalizing on a penalty corner that was forced by Wirth.
This was Fuchs’ first-ever goal, and it was in a championship game, producing what she described as “such a rush of excitement and it made me feel so proud of myself.”
Gallo, who had the initial insert on the corner, also was credited with the assist in a scrum in the circle.
“Before I got the ball it was on the left side of the goal and someone, I think it was Abby G, hit the ball to stroke where I was and I put it in the goal,” Fuchs wrote in yesterday’s text message to The Evening Enterprise.
A mainstay of the Trojans’ defense for four years, she is the undeniable leader in the back but lately also has become more involved in the offense because of her cool-headed play and fundamentally sound stopping and driving skills.
“I used to hang behind, but now I am on the circle,” she said of her positioning for offensive corners.
“Besides corners,” she said, “I do push up a lot more on the offensive side and usually go to the offensive 25.”
While Fuchs’ goal extended the spread to what appeared to be a comfortable 3-1 advantage, the game took on a bit of a nail-biter atmosphere about midway into the fourth quarter when two Kent County players were issued green cards for minor offenses 29 seconds apart — forcing the Trojans to play down for two minutes.
That’s when it started to rain, just a little, and just enough to be annoying.
But neither the weather — it was cold and windy and now wet — nor the penalties hindered the Trojans, who rode out the man-down infractions without allowing a shot.
The teams were all even with 5:50 remaining.
The only significant offensive push after that was at the 3:49 mark when Gallo forced a corner. She gathered in the ensuing insert from Wirth and sent a well-struck ball to the center of the box, only to be blocked by Galdamez.
Once the eight region champions were crowned earlier this week, Class 1A was re-seeded based on their regular-season winning percentage used to seed each region.
The result: Kent (4-9) is the No. 8 seed and will face No. 1 seed Liberty (13-1).
Liberty defeated Century 2-0, and South Carroll, 4-1, to win the West I Region.
The other quarterfinal pairings in Class 1A are: No. 2 Patuxent-No. 7 Middletown; No. 3 Fallston-No. 6 Sparrows Point; and No. 4 Pocomoke-No. 5 Perryville.
The winners will advance to the state semifinals, Nov. 5-6 at predetermined sites.
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The Trojans advanced to a region final for the first time since 2021 when their roster was only 12 players at full strength — one more than the minimum needed to fill every position. They dressed only 11 players in six games of that 5-7-1 campaign due to injury.
Kent lost in the region final to Southern of Anne Arundel County, a Class 2A school that competes at the Class 1A level for field hockey.
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There are three seniors on Kent County’s 2025 varsity-only roster of 15 players — Tess Fuchs, Grace Gerstung and McKenna Messick.
Messick waited until her sophomore year to come out for the team. She has scored in each of the Trojans’ four wins this season, including three-game-winning goals.
Fuchs and Gerstung, who are the captains, had never played field hockey until high school.
“We decided to start something new together,” Fuchs said.
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Mother and daughter, Suzie Wright-Taylor and Maddie Wright Taylor-Kerrigan, are the coaches at alma mater KCHS.
This is Wright-Taylor’s second region championship as head coach, while Taylor-Kerrigan has won region titles as a player in 2013 and now as a coach.
