DATE: Tuesday, November 11, 1997            TAG: 9711110431

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C6   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LEE TOLLIVER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   44 lines

COX TAKES 7TH STRAIGHT EASTERN REGION TITLE

Cox won its seventh-straight Eastern Region field hockey championship Monday with a 3-0 decision over Kellam in the third meeting of the season between the Beach District representatives.

Both advance to Thursday's Group AAA quarterfinals at Cox - with the Falcons taking on Northwest Region runnerup North Stafford and Kellam facing Northwest winner Stafford.

Cox will be attempting to take back the state title it lost last year to Kempsville after winning a national-record seven in a row.

To do so, coach Nancy Fowlkes thinks her team will have to play better than it did Monday, even though the game was quite lopsided.

``We didn't have the level we did in the other two (regional) games,'' she said. ``Kellam played strong, aggressive field hockey and I think the days off affected us.''

The championship was postponed from Friday because of sloppy field conditions and then postponed from Monday morning to the afternoon.

Kellam (15-5-1) opened strong and got a penalty corner and shot right off the bat, followed by a breakaway that was nicely challenged and broken up by Falcons keeper Kiernan Raffo - prompting Folwkes to call an early timeout.

From there on, Cox came to life and scored a pair of quick goals late in the first half.

Taylor Rountree scored first - netting her seventh goal of the tournament on a penalty corner play from Caroline Weirich.

Katie Kubic made it 2-0 just 45 seconds later when she took a nice feed from Rountree and easily beat Kellam keeper Tiffany Blaine.

Cox (17-2) kept the momentum and totally controlled the second half.

``I think we stepped up the pace in the second half,'' Fowlkes said, ``but we still failed to do certain things that we had been doing.''

The Falcons went up 3-0 a few minutes into second half play when Kubic took another pass from Rountree, who had controlled Sara Eaton's penalty corner starting pass.

Kellam got off what was only its second shot of the game, when Jennifer Howard launched a penalty corner shot from high in the circle. But the Falcons defense stopped the attempt well before it got to Raffo.

Cox finished the remainder of the game taking five more shots at Blaine to finish with a 12-2 shooting advantage.

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