By Andy Hutchison

WESTPORT — The good news was that the Wreckers kept the pressure on. Staples’s field hockey team compiled 14 penalty corners and pushed FCIAC foe Darien hard in a home clash on Tuesday afternoon. The bad news for the Wreckers: They couldn’t capitalize in a 3-0 setback to the Blue Wave.

“I told the girls at the end of the game that the score didn’t reflect the status of the game,” said Staples Coach Ian Tapsall, who was pleased with his team’s efforts, but disappointed in the execution on corners.

Charlotte Strange put the ball into play off the corners. Mary Stevens, Emma Nahon, Emma Larit, Tyla Ozgen, Caroline Cooper and Sophia Fidalgo worked hard to create chances.

“We do all the hard work,” Tapsall said of generating pressure in the circle that leads to corners.

“The foundation’s always been there. We’ve got a solid base of players. We’ve got to learn to react with our teammates. There’s too much guesswork going on,” the coach said. “We’ve got to work on penalty corners.”

The Wreckers have had plenty to be pleased with overall this fall. They have made it through the toughest stretch of the schedule with a 4-2 record and now head into a portion of the slate in which, given the way the Wreckers play, stands to result in continued winning ways. The toughest team left among eight opponents, it stands to reason, is Greenwich.

Staples visits Fairfield Warde on Saturday, Oct. 1 and returns home Monday, Oct. 3 to take on Brien McMahon of Norwalk — both games are at 4:00.

Andy Hutchison has been covering school sports — including Staples athletics — as well as news and feature stories in Fairfield County, since the 1990s. Learn more about us here.