T.J. Cowin wasn’t just changing positions to start her senior season. She was changing positions to fill a void left by one of the most prolific scorers in Mountain Valley Conference history.

 A natural wing because of her speed and stick-handling skills, Cowin moved to center forward in the preseason after improving her shot and demonstrating an ability to stay in the middle of the field. Since the Rebels rely on their wings to bring the ball up the field, Cowin had to get herself into a position to take the pass and find the back of the cage.

While Cowin’s responsibilities had changed, Telstar coach Gail Wight didn’t want her to put the weight of the team on her shoulders. 

“She puts a lot of pressure on herself. We had a couple of discussions where I told her ‘You’re not the only one out there. You need to relax just a little bit,'” Wight said. “She really put her heart and soul into it.”

Succeeding Whitney Mills added to the pressure, Cowin said.

“I’ve always admired her stick skills and the way she’s able to move the ball downfield. It was a hard spot to fill,” Cowin said. “There were definitely occasions where I felt more pressure, and (Wight) just kind of reassured me that I had the wings to help me out.”. 

Cowin’s own stick work and speed helped to make for a smooth transition, and her explosiveness as the leading scorer on the 16-1 Rebels made her the Sun Journal’s All-Area Player of the Year in field hockey.

Her ability to communicate on the field, calculate angles and anticipate the play put her in the right spot in the right time more often than not. Four years of varsity experience, three as a starter (with 41 goals and 30 assists in her career), also prepared her for any opportunity that may arise.

“She’s played on some very, very competitive teams the past four years, with some highly-competitive people on the team, to get a playing spot,” Wight said. “For some reason, the last few years we seem to have been turning out a lot of forward line players. T.J. would have played anywhere I put her. She didn’t just have to be a forward, but that’s what she had natural tendencies toward.”

Her natural ability turned heads from the time Cowin was a freshman, but few worked harder to hone their skills, Wight said. Whether it was  showing up every week for summer field hockey at Oxford Hills or just playing around with some friends on the turf field at Gould Academy, Cowin could be found  

“She’s one of those kids that’s always ready to go at practice and after practice I have to tell her ‘You have to come down now (off the field). I’m not supposed to leave you on the field unsupervised,'” Wight said. “She put in a lot of extra time on her penalty stroke, and shooting in general.”

The penalty stroke practice paid off, particularly in one contest against Winthrop where Cowin scored on three penalty corner shots from the top of the circle.

“I was really happy about the Winthrop game,” Cowin said. “Just being able to get a good shot on against them showed that I had improved.”

The win against Winthrop was one of the high points of a season that saw many for Cowin and the Rebels, but scoring wasn’t the only way Cowin could swing momentum to her team’s favor.

“Definitely one of the biggest things was being able to stop an opponent’s hit when it was a tie game or we were behind and then taking it up the field,” she said. “That would get us going.”

“The minute T.J. was moving, the rest of them were going, too,” Wight said. “She could lift the team up just by getting a breakaway. She’d come up with a ball and she’d be gone, and everyone else would just play that much better.”

“It seemed like in every game there was a point where you could almost see the game turn around because of something she did, whether it was scoring off of a corner or just getting a breakaway or picking off a 16-yard hit and getting the ball back in the circle and getting a corner called for us.”

The Rebels won their first 16 games before falling to eventual state champion North Yarmouth Academy in the Western C regional final. The final result didn’t please Cowin, who has also been a crucial part of Telstar’s dominant skiing and softball programs the last four years, but she said she’ll reflect fondly upon this season because of the friendships she forged or strengthened.

“This season was awesome,” said Cowin, who plans to major in nursing in college and hopes to find a school that will allow her to continue her field hockey career. “This team had a really good bond and got along so well on and off the field. It was so much fun to play with them.” 

T.J. Cowin of Telstar is the Sun Journal’s All-region field hockey player of the year for 2009.