FARMINGTON — Late in the second half, Mt. Blue senior Victoria Newbill was on the sidelines getting treatment for leg cramps. The heart usually overrules the head in situations like that, and Newbill’s only concern was getting back on the field.
“(The trainer) gave me some Tums or something, so as to get calcium back into me,” Newbill said. “I just had to sprint it out. I mean, this is the playoffs. It’s not like there’s another game after this if we lose. There’s no second chance. This is my senior year, so you just kind of have to suck it up and give it your all.”
Newbill returned to the field a short time later, and with 32.3 seconds left in the first overtime, she scored on a penalty stroke to give the Cougars a 1-0 victory over Cony in an Eastern A field hockey quarterfinal on Saturday afternoon.
No. 4 Mt. Blue (11-4) faces No. 1 Skowhegan (13-2) on Tuesday. Cony, the No. 5 seed, finishes at 8-7.
“They played with so much heart,” Cony coach Holly Daigle said of her players. “It was an unbelievable game. I can’t be more proud of those girls.”
With less than a minute to play in the first overtime, Newbill stole the ball in the offensive circle. Cony goalie Madeline Lewis made a nice play to cut Newbill off, but Mt. Blue’s reinforcements were right behind. After two saves by Lewis, the officials ruled the ball hit a Cony defender on the foot on the goal line, which results in a stroke.
After Mt. Blue coach Jody Harmon called timeout and told Newbill to take a few deep breaths, Newbill sent the ball into the left side of the cage for the win.
“I wanted to get the top right (corner), but I know a lot of times I overshoot those,” Newbill said. “I was like, ‘It’d just be too much.’ So I was trying to get to the lower left corner, and that’s where it went.”
With Madeline Reny dodging Mt. Blue defenders time and again, Cony spent most of the first half on offense. But although the Rams had an 8-2 edge in penalty corners before the break, the shots were 2-2. For the game, Cony had 14 penalty corners, and came away without a shot on 12 of them.
“It’s really back with Kayleigh Fontaine behind me,” Mt. Blue back Emilee Eustis said. “We talk really well, so if I attack the ball, Kayleigh’s always right behind me to stop whoever’s next, and if she stops the ball, she always tells me to drop back. So everyone’s always covered in the circle at all times.”
Mt. Blue out-shot the Rams, 11-3, in the second half, but Lewis and Cony back Abby Silsby both stood out on defense. That took the teams to overtime, and after back-to-back corners by Cony, a second overtime looked imminent before Newbill swooped in.
While the Rams lost a heart-breaker, they could take solace in how far they’ve come since a 3-9-3 record two years ago.
“Every game, it was somebody different who came up big,” Daigle said. “We got a lot of girls on the field today. A lot of girls played great games. So I think the future’s looking good for us.”
Matt DiFilippo — 861-9243
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