Maddie Kirchner ties career best with nine goals

By Walter J. O’Neill, Jr.

With a light rain falling on May 1, Maddie Kirchner (2) a junior at Ocean Township HS races to score her ninth goal of the game. Ocean beat Donovan Catholic 20-6.

Ocean Township High School junior Maddie Kirchner tied her career best by scoring nine goals in the May 1, win over Donovan Catholic. The Spartans hosted the game on Saturday morning and completely dominated the action taking the 20-6 victory.

The first time Kirchner scored nine goals was back on April 24, 2024 as a sophomore against St. Rose High School. This season, Kirchner has three games where she scored nine goals. On March 28, against Manalapan, Ocean lost 22-13, but nine of those were scored by her. April 14, they beat Point Beach 15-7 and again Kirchner had nine.

In the win over Donovan Catholic, Kirchner not only had nine goals, she assisted on three goals, picked up six ground balls and won seven draws. She is the field general for the Spartans, giving her teammates words of encouragement and helping designing the offensive plays.

With the win, Ocean improved to 4-8 on the season overall and 3-4 in the Constitution division of the Shore Conference. It also broke a four-game losing slump. Of the eight teams in that division, the Spartans are sitting in sixth position.

Also having a big game for Ocean was Brooke Todd, another junior. She finished with five goals, assisted once, picked up five ground balls and had seven draw controls. This season, Ocean has scored a total of 138 goals. Kirchner has 74 and Todd 41, for 115 of the Spartan goals.

Bryn Park, sophomore, had three goals, two ground balls and three draw controls for Ocean. Kilsarys Diaz, senior, scored twice and picked up three ground balls. The other Spartan goal was scored by Molly Tantrum, junior. She also had three ground balls in the win over Donovan Catholic. In the goal for the Spartans was Christina Azimov, senior, who had nine saves.

Kirchner has a total of 222 goals and 52 assists for 274 points over her three years on varsity. Ocean has three regular season games remaining on their schedule. They play at Howell on May 7, at Brick Township on May 12, and home against Point Boro on May 16.

Donovan Catholic dropped to 3-7 overall with the loss to Ocean. They are in the Freedom division of the Shore Conference at 1-4.

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