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MANHEIM — So this is what the Olympic stage will be like for the United States field hockey team.
A sea of red covering the fully-packed stands, roars of delight with each opportunity and sudden chants of “USA!”
A couple of former Wyoming Seminary teammates made them all cheer even harder.
Kat Sharkey scored the game’s first goal and found Kelsey Kolojejchick with the winning score Monday as the USA Olympic field hockey team opened its three-game Rio Send-Off Series with a 3-2 victory over India at the Spooky Nook Sports field in Manheim.
“This was a good test for us, because India’s in our pool,” said Sharkey, a Moosic native who teamed with Kolojejchick to win two state championships at Wyoming Seminary.
The performance impressed Dallas grad Paige Selenski, a veteran of the USA 2012 Olympic field hockey team who is serving as an alternate on this year’s Olympic squad.
“This team,” Selenski said, “can be special.”
The excitement surged throughout Monday’s pre-Olympics game, from one former Sem star to another.
Sharkey started the scoring when she deftly moved inside the circle and slammed home a score six minutes into the evening.
“I had to stay composed on the ball and not make my drive,” Sharkey said. “I saw an opening and put it in.”
Much later, she not only saw, but heard, her old high school teammate.
Sharkey created the game-winning opportunity by driving past two players, then fired an assist to Kolojejchick, who broke a 2-2 tie and deposited the winning goal with 7:36 to play.
“Kelsey and I, we’ve had a connection for years now,” Sharkey said. “She demanded, very loud, for that ball. I got it across. I was sure she’d finish it.”
The big finish was a validation of Team USA’s diligent efforts to tighten its game following an uplifting bronze medal performance at the Champion’s Trophy in London earlier this month.
“I think we came out of London battle-tested,” Sharkey said, “competed for the championship trophy. It was such a great opportunity to be there, we played against five of the top teams in the world. It was kind of a lesson learned for us. We had a lot of different areas we had to work on. We did a lot of hard work the last two weeks. It’lldid a lot of different workouts, we worked hard over the last two weeks. It’s encouraging to know we made improvements with our game.”
Team USA will play a second Rio Send-Off Series game against India at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday and end their time at their home training center of Spooky Nook with a 6:30 p.m. game against Canada.
From there, the USA team will head to the 2016 Rio Olympics, where it will begin play Aug. 11 in a Pool B that includes India, Argentina, Great Britain and Japan.
