Wilson High Field Hockey Team

Targets League Championship

 

Donna (Howey) Bysher '71 Recalls 1968 Title 

October 19, 2022

With the new high school buildings occupying the grounds that we remember as the field hockey and soccer pitches, the Wilson Area High School varsity field hockey team now plays its home matches on the athletic complex fields at the Intermediate School in Avona. 

This Thursday (10/20/22), however, the girls take to the road to meet Northwestern Lehigh in a semi-final playoff match that could result in the Warriors punching their ticket into the final of the 2022 Colonial League field hockey championship tournament. Perennial front-runner and defending champion Southern Lehigh takes on Palmerton in Thursday's other semi. 

Wilson brings a stellar 15-1-1 record into the semi-final, including a 14-0-0 stretch where the team outscored its opponents 68-10 to open the campaign.  Wilson edged all three other semi-finalists by a single goal during its perfect August and September run, before dropping a return encounter with Palmerton, 1-0, in the penultimate regular season match.

Thursday's doubleheader will be played at Northern Lehigh HS in Slatington, with the Warriors getting underway at 5:00 p.m.. The two winners will clash on Saturday.

 

Wilson Warriors field hockey team in action against Moravian Academy.  Click here for a great article about this crucial and exciting overtime match, as well as many more action photos.

 

Should the Warriors advance to and win Saturday's league championship match it would be Wilson's first Colonial League field hockey title. But it wouldn't be the first league title won by stick-wielding Wilson girls.

That honor was bestowed over a half-century ago and belongs to Wilson's 1968 Lehigh-Northampton League champions - a team that included a number of Class of 1971 athletes who, as Sophomores, contributed greatly toward that distinction.  Carolyn Arnold,  Donna Howey, Delores Manno, Debbie Vogel and team manager Dawn Lambert were all key contributors to an unbeaten 5-0-2 league mark and 5-2-3 overall record.  Vogel's three goals were enough to tie her for leading scorer (with Kathy Riley '70), no small feat considering home matches were played on a field that resembled the hardscrabble terrain of the First World War's infamous "no man's land."

One of those 1968 title-holding veterans, Donna (Howey) Bysher, lives just four-or-so blocks from the auditorium that now occupies the GPS coordinates of that oft maligned, yet historic and beloved field. She's kept close tabs on Wilson's field hockey resurgence.

"We have been following the team and have gone to as many games as possible," Donna reports. "I'm so very proud of the girls and their teamwork.  They've had an amazing season full of outstanding accomplishments. I've been filled with WHS Pride."

As regards her experiencing her own "Thrill of Victory" 54 years ago this month, Donna notes, "The incredible experience I had when we won the championship in my 10th grade year was one of my most cherished moments in high school.  I'm one very proud and emotional WHS alum!"

WILSON AREA HIGH SCHOOL VARSITY FIELD HOCKEY

1968 LEHIGH-NORTHAMPTON LEAGUE CHAMPIONS