By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
On X @GDsullysays
HAMMONTON — Camden Catholic High junior Sophia Stazi may have had an angel on her shoulder during the Non-Public South Jersey field hockey championship on Wednesday afternoon at St. Joseph Academy.
She was playing in the town where her maternal grandfather lived — and lost — his life. The place where he raised his family, and left such a mark that St. Joe’s named its football field Bill Bendig Field. Stazi seemed to summon his energy and spirit as she was unstoppable, scoring four goals, including two in the second half, as the second-seeded Irish rolled to a 6-2 victory over the No. 1 seed Wildcats.
Stazi’s fourth and final goal of the night came with 14 seconds remaining and was the perfect cap off, as it was also the 100th tally of her already brilliant career.
“It is very special, especially the location,” Stazi, of Washington Township, said of the landmark goal. “St. Joseph is very special to me because my grandfather died at the football field and it’s named after him, so it was very special to get it at St. Joe’s. It’s a great accomplishment, but it’s just one step. We have to keep going.”
Bendig was the head of the St. Joseph High football boosters — back before it was known in its current form as St. Joseph Academy — and had two sons playing football back in 1995. He died of a sudden heart attack while guarding the field from potential pranksters the night before the Wildcats were getting set to host crosstown rival Hammonton that Thanksgiving weekend. His daughter, Jaime — Sophia’s mom — was just 17 years old and a senior in high school at the time.
So it was only fitting that 30 years later Bendig’s granddaughter, a Rutgers University recruit, put together one of the best performances of her career while leading her team to its sixth straight sectional championship.
“Sophia is a great player. She really deserved her 100th goal because she works so hard,” said senior forward Savannah Freeland. “She’s a great player and Rutgers will be lucky to have her. It means a lot. She’s an amazing player and she earned it. I’m so proud of her.”
Stazi scored a pair of goals off corners in the first half, but each time St. Joseph Academy (17-4, 7-1 Cape-Atlantic League American/CAL Tournament champions) answered with goals by senior Stella Devlin. The first came when she tapped in a shot on a corner by Nina Aponte, and the second came just before halftime when she beat a defender and lifted a shot past Irish goalie Madelyn LaForm.
But the second half was a different story, as LaForm was a brick wall and the Irish rallied for four unanswered goals. Lauren Iaccio gave Camden Catholic (17-6, 5-1 Olympic National) the lead for good at 3-2 with a goal early in the third quarter, and Stazi’s two goals sandwiched one by Emily Schollins early in the fourth quarter that gave the Irish a commanding 5-2 lead.
Camden Catholic advances to Saturday’s state championship game at Bordentown High, where the Irish will face familiar foe Oak Knoll.
“At halftime, we really just talked about working hard for the rest of the game because for the seniors it could have been their last game,” Freeland said. “I definitely think we’re going to keep working hard in practice until we get to the state championship on Saturday. We’re excited.”
“(St. Joe’s) put in their hard work. This wasn’t an easy game for us,” Stazi added. “It wasn’t like, ‘oh, we’re getting a free pass to states.’ We had to earn our way there and St. Joe’s made it a good game. At halftime we just said that we needed to work harder. We knew we were better (than the way we were playing). We came out slowly, but we lifted each other up and I think the inspirational words after making mistakes helped us.”
Camden Catholic certainly faced some adversity getting to this point. Normally a team that rarely loses during the regular season, the Irish found themselves at just 8-5 after losing 4-0 to Oak Knoll in early October. The Irish suffered another loss, to state power West Essex, on the final day of the regular season, but in the playoffs they’ve outscored opponents17-3 in three games.
“Obviously, people doubted us because we lost a lot of games this year, but the games we lost we learned so much from. We’d stay after school and watch film and learn from the mistakes we made, and I think that we grew as a team, together. Teams get doubted, but we had to take is step-by-step, quarter-by-quarter, game-by-game. We knew we could do better,” Stazi said. “All the freshmen coming in put the work in during practice. Maeve Hunter just scored her first varsity goal a couple games ago; Molly (Gillern) and Kendall (Broome) are doing amazing. They knew how we play, they want to learn and listen and they’re playing the way we want them to. There was some doubt, but we don’t look at rankings or scores. We don’t look at seedings or anything like that, we just play our game, and hopefully we win.”
Added Freeland, “we’ve been working really hard in practice and we’ve been preparing for this moment. We said that our playoff run could erase everything bad that’s happened this season. We’ve just been working on really high intensity and working hard every time we step on the field. We’ve had some disappointing moments this season, but we’ve just been trying to bounce back and be ready for states.”
