By BRIAN TORTELLA
Correspondent
On X @tortreports
TOMS RIVER — Back on Sept. 20, the Kingsway Regional High field hockey team was 0-6 and looked like a shell of its former self.
Many had serious doubts about whether the three-time defending Group 4 state champions had what it took to make a serious title defense.
Head coach Erin Bernat said she always believed.
“You know, they were tough games, for sure, but I always believed in them,” the first-year coach said. “I always knew that we were going to be just fine. It was really just putting the pieces together and getting through our really tough schedule in the beginning.
“That’s why we did that hard schedule. It prepared us for now. I believed it helped us tremendously. It’s hard on the mind sometimes, and that’s why we needed to have a little mindset shift.”
After arguably playing the most competitive regular-season schedule in the region — one that included 10 games against state-ranked opponents — and entering the postseason with a 7-11 record, the Dragons have won their first three playoff games by a combined 23-4 score.
With a dominant 12-1 triumph over No. 6 seed Toms River North on Monday, No. 10 Kingsway is heading to its eighth consecutive South Jersey Group 4 final (excluding the 2020 covid-shortened season) and its first in the Bernat era. The Dragons will travel to top-seeded Cherokee — a 2-0 winner over No. 4 Southern Regional in the other semifinal — on Wednesday for the sectional championship.
“Losing is not always easy,” said Bernat, who served as a varsity assistant during Kingsway’s last three title runs. “But we had to get to a mindset where it’s like, ‘you know what? This is preparing us.’ And every game we got better and better, despite losing. I like to call them road warriors. They have energy every day. They’re doing really well on the road.”
Senior forward Isabella Sanchez scored six goals in the dominant victory over Toms River North (14-8, 2-4 Shore Conference A South), giving her a career-high 24 this season. Junior Reese Samra, a Rutgers University commit, tacked on three more while Alexandra Beety, Alyssa Aimis and Cecelia Wycckoff added one each for the Dragons (10-11, 6-2 Tri-County Royal).
“I think with our hard schedule, we had some rough patches, but we were able to come together at the right time,” said Sanchez, a St. Joseph’s University commit. “If we keep playing the way we have been the last few weeks, we’ll do great. We’re keeping the same principles as we have the past few years and I think it’s working for us.
“(Bernat) likes to hear what the players have to say, and she’ll really listen to us. She really believes in us and what we say.”
Kingsway’s new-look coaching staff includes varsity assistant Susan Massara, who has played a key role in helping Bernat lead the Dragons. Massara won five sectional titles in her decade as the head coach at Woodstown from 2012 to 2022. She’s also the Dragons’ head flag football coach, having led the team to the West Jersey Football League title in 2024.
She certainly knows a thing or two about what it takes to prepare for a deep playoff run, and concurred with the belief that a challenging schedule helped Kingsway prepare for this current stretch.
“Seeing and being around this caliber of field hockey is just so much fun. Win or lose, you get to see the game played as it should be, and the girls took it in stride,” Massara said. “There were rough patches, but we got through it, and they’re showing that they came out stronger because of it.
“Coach Bernat did a great job of staying at one level of never getting too high or getting too low, and that just trickles down to the team,” she added. “They see how she reacts, they see how we react, and it absorbs into the culture. I think that this particular program has an insanely great field hockey culture when it comes to winning and performing and taking from those losses and making them positive. You’re seeing it in fruition for the season. This is what we work for, and hopefully on Wednesday we can show everyone what we’ve got.”
The way they got here may be different, but reaching championship games always was the goal.
“It would mean everything,” Bernat said of potentially winning a fourth consecutive state title. “To see those girls (the seniors), get another state championship would just mean everything. It would be so well deserved. One day at a time, and hopefully we get to our ultimate goal.”
WHAT’S NEXT: No. 10 Kingsway travels to No. 1 Cherokee on Wednesday, time TBD, for the South Jersey Group 4 championship. Toms River North’s season is complete.
