End of an Era: Patroon Conference field hockey disbands

With the advent of a new season always comes changes. Changes in changes staff and players, but few expected that the arrival of the 2018 field hockey season would bring a change that would shake the whole scene.

The Patroon Conference housed five field hockey programs in Taconic Hills, Germantown, Ichabod Crane, Coxsackie-Athens and Emma Willard. The conference has a rich history of competiton and rivalries, from the Taconic Hills and Germantown in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s and, more recently, between Taconic Hills and Emma Willard.

However, in April, Germantown faced a dilemma with its program that changed the course of the Patroon Conference going forward.

Germantown coach Claire Meyer and the Lady Clippers, five months ahead of the field hockey season, were fretting the ability to field a team with expected low numbers and the possibility of not having a field to play on. After seeing a numbers decline last season due, in part, to a new girls soccer program at the school, Germantown field hockey saw a dismal future.

According to Meyer, the school district planned on digging up part of the field hockey field, as well, to make way for the new gymnasium. Coach Meyer stated that the school district did not want to pay for the team to play all of its games on the road.

With Germantown seemingly bowing out five months ahead of the season, that left the conference with just four teams, forcing the Patroon Conference to disband.

Germantown ended up fielding a team, though the damage was already done. Meyer stated that this will be the last season Germantown will have a team.

According to Taconic Hills’ athletic director and field hockey coach Angela Webster, the reason behind the Patroon Conference folding this season was based on Germantown declaring that they were not going to have a team in April.

With the league gone, the five former Patroon teams made a mad dash to assemble a schedule for the 2018 season. For the teams, it was join Section IX, join the Wasaren/Adirondack League or play an independent schedule.

Taconic Hills and Coxsackie-Athens joined Section IX this season while Ichabod Crane, Germantown and Emma Willard are playing independent schedules.

“Due to location, Coxsackie-Athens and I applied to join Section IX. We already played a few of the teams in non-league contests,” Webster said. “We made this decision to keep field hockey as an option for players at Taconic Hills and Coxsackie-Athens. If we chose to be independent, it would have been more difficult to create a schedule and would only leave us with sectionals as a goal.”

For Taconic Hills and Coxsackie-Athens, the scheduling of games was easier, seeing that they now have 11 league games in Section IX. In addition, two games out of the 16-game max schedule needed to be reserved for the Mid-Hudson Athletic League Championships. TH and C-A were left with only three nonleague games to fit in and two of those games will be against Emma Willard and Ichabod Crane.

For some teams, the process of creating a game schedule to conduct a season wasn’t an easy task, especially for first-year Ichabod Crane coach Phil Leader.

“I was very surprised when the Patroon folded,” he said. “I did not see this coming at all. I think the decision made by the teams that decided to move to Section IX caught all of Section II off guard.”

With the Patroon Conference folding so close to the start of the season, Section II was unable to place Ichabod Crane in a conference, forcing the school, and athletic director Tim Stewart, to create a 14-game independent schedule.

Section II expects to place Ichabod Crane in a conference within the next two years.

With the changes came challenges for the Riders.

“Some of the challenges in playing an independent schedule are the distance we have to travel, and it is very difficult to get a home game or a home and away game,” Leader said. “Teams that are in leagues have a pretty full schedule just playing the teams in their conference.”

This season Ichabod Crane will be playing teams as far north as Granville and as far south as Red Hook.

New schedules for Ichabod Crane and Taconic Hills presented new levels of competition on the field, which both teams have embraced.

“The change in competition is a good thing, with more teams to compete against and the fact that we only play each team once in the regular season, there are no second chances to beat them,” Webster said. “We have to bring our ‘A’ game and, if not, use our loss as a teaching tool to prepare for the next.”

Leader is also excited about the opportunity of playing teams outside of the Patroon Conference and his hope is that playing at this level will only improve the team and program as a whole.

When asked about the future of the Patroon Conference, both Leader and Webster don’t have a concrete answer.

For Leader, the first-year coach is not optimistic about the future of the Patroon Conference.

“Right now I see very little chance of the Patroon Conference returning any time in the near future,” he said. “Possibly years down the road things might change, but as things stand now, I do not forsee the Patroon Conference returning.”