SKOWHEGAN — The Skowhegan field hockey team didn’t look at Thursday as one of their remarkable performances. What mattered to them is that they bounced back from the way they played on Tuesday.
The Indians felt they played a sub-par game Tuesday in a one-goal win over Mt. Blue, but Skowhegan was back on Thursday afternoon. The Indians scored four goals in the first half and rolled to a 7-0 victory over Cony.
“It was better than we played Tuesday,” Skowhegan coach Paula Doughty said. “Tuesday…I don’t know. Nobody showed up. Today, people showed up. We looked better. We’re starting to get back into a rhythm.”
Brooke Michonski and Cassidy Clement each scored two goals for the Indians (12-1), while Lauren LeBlanc, Julia Steeves and Haley Thebarge had one goal apiece.
The opening minutes belied everything that unfolded afterward. With Becca Coniff driving the ball and Madeline Reny and Arika Brochu steadily moving the ball upfield, the Rams (7-6) kept Skowhegan in its own end for nearly four minutes.
The Indians finally moved the ball across midfield with just over 26 minutes left in the first half. A few seconds later, they got a penalty corner, and LeBlanc passed ahead to Michonski for the goal.
Clement scored less than two minutes later, to make it 2-0 with 23:25 still to go in the half. Four minutes after that, Michonski put in her second goal.
“We talked a lot in the circle today, which we’ve had a hard time doing,” Clement said, “and we just all played really together. We had a rough game against Mt. Blue, but today, we really came out strong.”
Cony, which is one of only three teams to score against Skowhegan this season, earned three consecutive penalty corners. But the Indians still had the best scoring chances during that stretch. Cony goalie Madeline Lewis made a beautiful leg save on the left post to steal a goal from Clement, but Julia Steeves converted a breakaway, and it was 4-0 at halftime.
The Indians kept up the pressure in the second half, with Thebarge and LeBlanc scoring about four minutes apart, and Clement knocking in the final goal with 23.4 seconds to go.
Skowhegan goalie Leah Kruse, in her second game back after missing most of the season with appendicitis, made three saves and dove to the ground a couple times.
“The thing about having Leah back, more than anything, is her presence,” Doughty said. “She knows where people should be, and she keeps people marked up.”
Another positive note for the Indians is that even though leading scorer Renee Wright was ill and missed parts of the game, Skowhegan had enough weapons to score seven goals by five different players.
“Renee wasn’t feeling great today, so I didn’t play her much today,” Doughty said. “It’s really been kind of comical. This team has had to carry each other all year long. The good thing about having so many problems during the year is we’ve had to be really versatile, and it pays off. I’ve never, ever been through a season like this. We haven’t had one game yet when everybody has been well, healthy, and able to play.”
Matt DiFilippo — 861-9243
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