Glenelg repeats as Maryland 2A champions — this time with a new coach


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OWINGS MILLS, Md. — One of the first things Christina Giampalmo did when she took over as Glenelg’s field hockey coach in August was have the players write down what they wanted to get out of the season. Most of them had one goal in mind — to repeat as Maryland 2A state champions.

The Gladiators’ hopes came to fruition Saturday at Stevenson University. A couple of fourth quarter goals lifted Glenelg to a 2-0 shutout of Manchester Valley, giving the Howard County school its second straight title and its sixth since 2010.

“We really united at the end,” Giampalmo said. “We went from having a whole bunch of talented players to having a whole squad that worked together.”

Giampalmo, a 2010 Glenelg alumna, had no coaching experience when she took over for Nicole Trunzo, who left the team because she was pregnant. Giampalmo leaned on assistants Candice Russ and Hope Burke, both of whom coached at Maryland-based Warhawks Field Hockey Club. Russ has known a lot of the Gladiators since they were as young as 10, including Theresa Stiller, the Gladiators’ leading goal scorer.

Saturday’s match was a stalemate into the fourth quarter, as Manchester Valley (13-3-1) was stifling the Gladiators’ strong attack. The Mavericks drew a series of penalty corners in the second quarter, none of which resulted in successful shots.

About a minute after the final period began, Glenelg (13-6) broke the ice on a well-designed penalty corner play. A series of passes culminated in junior forward Ashley Kim feeding her sixth assist of the year to junior midfielder Emily Altshuler, who buried the shot.

Glenelg broke through again with two minutes to play in the fourth. This time it was Stiller pushing her team-high 17th goal of the season into the back of the cage from the right side off an assist from Skylar Rill.

“Not even considering that I’ve known them for so long, even over the course of this year, the growth that they’ve made as individuals and as a team is something that’s stood out to me,” Russ said. “I think a lot of it, too, is that there was a little bit of uncertainty with them because they didn’t have a coach until preseason started.”

This summer before tryouts, the Glenelg players were setting up their own practices and workouts. A former football coach was helping out the junior varsity team. But once Giampalmo was named coach, she had a group of players who had already started working toward the goal they accomplished Saturday.

“We’ve just been going up all season and getting better,” sophomore defender Sarah Walker said. “And I think the goal is to do it again next year.”



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