NHP girls playing like a hungry team

The New Hyde Park field hockey team runs on . . . tacos?

When coach Kori Brocking posed the "What will it take to motivate you?" question to her players during a summer practice and jokingly followed up with "Do you want me to pay you?" she got this answer from Kristen Lynch:

"Give us tacos! That's more valuable."

"We all love tacos!" the players shouted in unison.

And a movement was born, and so was the Taco Tally, a cardboard chart that tracks the team's stats with taco stickers.

"Every time we do something good like score a goal, get an assist or execute something we've worked on in practice, you receive a taco sticker on the chart," Mollie Stein said. "At the end of the year, we're having a big taco party, and it's coming out of Coach's pockets. We have lots of motivation to do well."

But of course, five stickers allows them to upgrade to a chalupa, ya know.

The reason for the proposal was the Gladiators' move up to Class A for the first time in six seasons, which meant facing a slew of teams the players hadn't seen before.

Their response to the challenge and that dangling carrot - tortilla, actually - was a 10-4 record in the regular season, earning the No. 3 seed in the playoffs. Their Class A debut was a 4-2 upset of defending county champion Massapequa. Later a 3-1 win against Baldwin, the 2009 runner-up, and a 3-0 victory over 2008 champ East Meadow.

"We weren't familiar with our opponents, so we were going into games blindly," goalie Priscila Paulose said, "so doing well under those conditions has been great."

And with each achievement, another sticker . . . and more profits for their local Taco Bell.

Lisa O'Callaghan (17 points) and Michelle Polizzano (12) are among the county's top scorers and thus, the team's biggest sticker-earners. They plan to share, though.

"If that's what it takes," Brocking said, "then it's definitely worth it."

It doesn't stop at tacos, though. There are pasta parties, Mama O'Callaghan's desserts (brownies, seven-layer Jell-O, etc.) and the newly instituted "dip wars." Yes, competitive dip-making featuring Polizzano's pizza dip (melted cream cheese mixed with tomato sauce) and Kerri-Leigh Heesemann's Mexican style with chili. When Stein said the teammates "feed off each other," it was tough to figure out if she meant on the field or at the table.

"It's a miracle we're all still in shape," Heesemann joked.

Beyond the food, there's the team's greater motivation, which is its closeness and its rallying around the coach. It goes as far as the sky-blue "Brock Solid" T-shirts some of them wear to practice (a playful slogan borrowed from the coach's husband, T.J., the Glenn wrestling coach) and the girls' self-assigned challenge of coming up with more name puns during "Brocktober."

"It's like a family," said Ana Bisciello, a sophomore who's new to them, eliciting a chorus of "awws" from the group. "I was really nervous about being the freshman to varsity, but they all welcomed me, which was surprising . . . They took me under their wing and I look up to them so much."

Last year was a springboard for this one, Brocking said. The team squeaked into the playoffs as the sixth seed but pulled an upset in strokes over previously undefeated Seaford in the first round.

"That win was huge for the program," said Alexandria Caccamo, a member of the 2009 team who now is at Molloy. "That momentum they got, it's something to build on."

There are 10 seniors on this squad, girls who've seen the program burgeon and believe - as the backs of some of their practice shirts say - "It's our time." The iron, they think, is as hot as it's going to get as they start the playoffs Tuesday.

"This year is sad because it's our last together, but it's exciting at the same time," senior Paige Sferrazza said. "We understand it's the best opportunity we've ever had and we want to go out with a bang."

And a crunch.