Championship Saturday

This Saturday two County Titles will be up for grabs as Lakeland goes for the championship in girls’ soccer and Pompton Lakes looks to repeat in field hockey. They will face the Waynes, Valley and Hills respectfully, two of the counties bigger sisters. And, to make things a bit more complicated, the games will be played at the site of the lower seeded team. These county tournaments are planned in advance and the site picked will always be the home field of one of the teams, but is it too much to have the games played at the home of the higher ranked seed?
Both fields in Wayne have artificial turf and while Valley doesn’t normally play their games on that particular field, it has more experience on it than do the Lancers. DePaul, which plays on the fake stuff, gave them all they could handle in the semi-final, losing on PK’s, because they were able to neutralize Lakeland’s greatest asset, namely, speed. Having played on it will help but Valley is another quick and talented team that can give the Lancers fits. I think Lakeland wins the game but it will be a tough game. Valley is the defending co-champion and they have been playing up to their reputation. They dominated West Milford Saturday in the other semi-final. Fresh off their upset win over Clifton the Highlanders played hard but could not keep up with the Indians speed.
Pompton Lakes is and has been a field hockey power. Hills has been a good team and a win for them would restore them to a time when they were the dominate force in Passaic County field hockey. Between the two schools, they have won 23 of the 33 county tournaments.
Pompton Lakes plays great defense and has an attacking style of offense. Signature wins against over Northern Highlands and Montclair shows that they can stand up to the powers in both Bergen and Essex counties, now they have the chance to confirm they are the best in Passaic County-again.