It was a defensive battle throughout most of Wednesday evening when Lee-Davis traveled to face Atlee in field hockey. A scoreless first half, led to a brief respite when both teams scored within minutes of one another then the two teams went back to a refusal to yield sending the match into overtime.

But after the Confederates closed out regulation by successfully defending the goal from five consecutive penalty corners, they found themselves in the same position in the first minutes of sudden death. And on the fourth consecutive penalty corner of OT, a battle ensued between the teams near the net. As a group of players swung their sticks and collided, Atlee’s Jamie MacKay somehow managed to hit the ball that barely had the momentum to cross the Confederates’ goal line before stopping. But that was all it took and Atlee handed Lee-Davis a 2-1 loss, their second district stumble after falling to Hanover last week.

For Lee-Davis coach Courtney Jones, losing in such a manner was painful. “It’s like someone taking a knife and stabbing at you,” she said. “It does. It hurts in that situation. It’s sudden death and that’s how it feels.”

On the opposite sideline, Atlee coach Alyssa Farling was also feeling pain during the multiple attacks but for a different reason. “I had a heart attack on the sideline,” she said. “We just kept shooting and not getting it in, but their defense played extremely well.”

Despite Atlee scoring the winning goal in sudden death, Jones said her Confederates actually lost the game during the scoreless first period. “We didn’t play our game the first 30 minutes and that cost us a lot,” she said. “It really did.

“We’re the type of team where we need to start off with control and we didn’t,” Jones said. “We weren’t attacking the ball. We weren’t going to the ball and the first 30 minutes of the game, that’s a big chunk of time and you can’t get it back.”

For Jones, her normally efficient Lee-Davis squad was not acting as a team. “Sometimes the girl tend to think the ball’s going to be delivered to them and don’t come to it,” she said.

In the second period, the Confederates came out with determination and midway through the half; Kelsey Reynolds drove inside to put Lee-Davis on the board.

But Atlee took the ball down the field and a few minutes later knotted things up at 1-1 on a penalty corner score from Laura Beckler. “I think they responded well,” Farling said of her Raiders. “Sometimes that can be tough to keep up when you get scored on first and it’s a tough team so we know it’s not going to be easy. But I thought they came back well and they came back positive and just kept playing their game.”

The two teams continued their attacks through the remainder of regulation setting up the sudden death dramatics.

The loss by Lee-Davis puts the perennial district front-runner in an unusual position. After last week’s loss to Hanover along with the Atlee defeat, the Confederates are now sitting at 5-2 in Capital District play while the Hawks are 5-1.

Both coaches agree that the district title is now up for grabs, because the leader could change on a daily basis. “It’s one of those things where it’s up in the air, which is good because that means our district is competitive now,” Farling said.

Lee-Davis———————0 1 0 – 1
Atlee——————————0 1 1 – 2

LD: K. Reynolds
A: Beckler, MacKay
Saves: Claire (LD) 15; Harris (A) 15
Records: Lee-Davis 5-2 Capital 9-3; Atlee 3-3, 6-5