BY RYAN O'CONNOR

The season hasn’t progressed as expected, but first-year coach Stephanie Georgevits sees many positives in this year’s West High School field hockey squad.

Though the Blue Knights began the season with a 1-1 tie against Merrimack, they dropped their next four, falling to 0-4-1.

“We’re still getting adjusted to working as a team, and we are young and don’t have a lot of numbers this year, so we are running with what we have,” said Georgevits, who noted the schedule becomes considerably easier the rest of the way after playing traditional Class L contenders Exeter, Londonderry and Keene, as well as two-time defending champ Salem.

“We kind of got the heavy-hitting teams out of the way and have a more balanced schedule coming up,” she continued. “We learned from those games and used our mistakes to better ourselves for the next game, and it seems to be working pretty well.”

Georgevits said final scores don’t accurately reflect West’s play on the field.

“We just need to work more on getting the ball in the net. A lot of games have been close, and we haven’t been able to capitalize on scoring goals,” she said.

With four seniors on the 2007 squad, Georgevits sees plenty of room for future growth.

All but two of the Blue Knights’ 16-player roster reside in Bedford, including senior captains Erin Murray and Sarah Astarita and junior captain Sarah Lacaillade.

Keeper Carissa Iannone is also from Bedford.

“She’s been playing very well, making some very great saves and coming up big in some games we needed her in,” said Georgevits.

Other Bedford residents on the team include Mary Lehman and juniors Heather Comstock, Nicole Frenette, Stephanie Aube, Colleen Ahern, Kaitlyn Cameron, Kathryn Lavery, Sara Bee, Katharine-Lee Harding and Abigail Walsh.