The field hockey regular season is over and whatever happened in the past doesn’t matter.
This is the postseason, where anything can happen.
OK, so maybe that’s not quite true. In a sport with only 16 teams and, somehow, three divisions, everyone makes the playoffs but everyone’s chances are certainly not the same.
Postseason play begins Friday, Oct. 23, with quarterfinal games, continues to next week’s semifinals – Division I and III Tuesday, Division II Thursday – and concludes on Sunday, Nov. 1, at Roger Williams University with the three championship games.
Who will win? Here’s what to look for in each of the three divisions.
Moses Brown will win again
There are two great games in the Division I playoffs and none involve Moses Brown, the No. 1 seed.
It’s not a knock on the Quakers or the rest of the division. Moses Brown went undefeated in Rhode Island play this fall and, based on those results and how the team played in the second half – capped by Tuesday’s 6-0 win over La Salle – a third straight title seems to be a lock.
Playoff games need juice and while quarterfinal matchups don’t fit the bill, the matchup between No. 5 North Kingstown and No. 4 La Salle does. The Rams beat the Skippers in the season opener, 4-3, but North Kingstown travel to Providence on Sept. 29 and came away with an overtime win. The game should be played Friday the competition should be better than 90 percent of the football games scheduled that night.
The best game of the tournament could be the second semifinal at Cranston Stadium on Tuesday, Oct. 27, between No. 2 East Greenwich and No. 3 Barrington. The Avengers made the trip to the East Bay on Sept. 1 and came away with a 3-1 win, then defended their home field and grabbed a 3-1 win on September 29. The Eagles have gone 5-1 since that loss, with their lone defeat coming in a 3-1 game against Moses Brown.
So does anyone have a shot against the Quakers? At the start of the season, it seemed the gap of talent had closed. In the second half of the season, Moses Brown left everyone in its wake.
While a Quakers’ championship seems like a forgone conclusion, the team won’t operate like that’s a fact. What makes Moses Brown dangerous – besides talent, coaching and execution – is its ability to go into every game locked in on the task at hand. The Quakers aren’t thinking about winning a championship – they’re thinking about winning a semifinal first.
But yeah, they’re going to win the state title. Any other outcome would truly be one of the great upsets of the last several years.
Will D-II be the most competitive?
Some teams play to get into the dance. On Monday, South Kingstown was playing so they didn’t miss one.
The Rebels went to Chariho for their regular-season finale and were chasing a bye, but not just for competitive reasons. A school dance and a quarterfinal game would have fallen on the same date, so South Kingstown had no option but to win.
Things got a little scary, but once Marah Nelson scored with 5:35 left in overtime, the Rebels weer able to celebrate their win – and it might not be the last time they do that this fall.
South Kingstown is the No. 2 seed for the Division II playoffs and will be the most curious team to watch in the tournament. The Rebels are the lone team in Division II that plays on grass and, based on past history, those teams play even better once they end up on turf surfaces that teams will play on throughout the postseason.
What gives South Kingstown an edge moving forward is goalie Harper Rodman, a Second Team All-State selection last fall and the state’s best at the position this year. Last year Rodman left it all out on the field in SK’s shootout lost and this year, she’s more than ready to give it another go and try and grab the Rebels a championship.
After Monday’s win, South moved to the No. 1 seed. When Division III Tiverton lost to Westport (Mass.) on Tuesday night, the domino effect of the loss on the RPI dropped the Rebels to second with Cumberland moving to No. 1.
This might have been a nightmare situation for the Clippers depending on what happens with the quarterfinal matchup between No. 5 Lincoln School – last year’s D-II champ – and No. 4 Cranston – which lost in last year’s D-III final.
Cumberland finished the year 8-5-2, with two losses coming to Division I teams and the other three coming to the Lynx and Thunderbirds. Most No. 1 seeds get an easy matchup in the semis; whoever the Clippers play will be anything but.
South Kingstown will play either No. 3 Lincoln or No. 6 Classical. The Rebels beat both team twice in the regular season and while it’s hard to beat someone three times, having the confidence with those two wins should help.
Don’t be shocked if the top two seeds end up in the final, but don’t forget the Division II playoffs have the biggest upset potential of the three field hockey tournaments.
South Kingstown has Rodman in the cage, which is a huge plus, and Cumberland has motive no other team can match,
But if there’s one true dark horse, keep an eye out for Cranston. The Thunderbirds need to be ready to go for Lincoln School – which has the star power to get an early goal and pull out a 1-0 win – before they can prepare for a semifinal. Cranston’s success against other teams in this division means its chances are better than any and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the team grab a championship that evaded it last fall.
Will chalk rule Division III?
There’s five teams in the division and only two – No. 1 Chariho and No. 2 Tiverton – have winning records. Logic dictates the Chargers – who co-op with Prout – and Tigers – who co-op with Bay View – are locks for the Division III title.
But let’s not put that down in Sharpie quite yet.
Based off regular-season results, a Chariho-Tiverton final would be epic. The Tigers beat the Chargers 1-0 on Sept. 24, then came away with a 2-1 overtime win on the road on Oct. 15.
No. 4 Smithfield could play the role of spoiler. The Sentinels played Chariho twice this season, earning a scoreless draw at home on September 21 before losing, 1-0, on the grass on October 13.
Had Tiverton won its season finale against Westport and moved to the No. 1 seed, No. 3 Toll Gate would have been looking a lot better as well. The Titans had strong performances against Chariho this season, but are now lined up with Tiverton, which handled them with ease this season.
With only five teams in the division, one-win Pilgrim is also in the playoffs and will play Smithfield in the quarterfinal. It’s been a rough season for the Patriots, but their one win was against the Sentinels, and if they pulled off another it would make their season a memorable one.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: The RIIL field hockey playoffs have arrived. Here's what to watch for.