AUGUSTA — After 20 minutes of fairly even play against Cony on Tuesday, Skowhegan field hockey coach Paula Doughty called timeout.
“I thought the first 15 minutes they out-hustled us,” Doughty said. “I called a timeout and (assistant coach) Tammie (Veinotte) and I made some corrections.”
The corrections apparently worked as Kayla Furbush and Emily Reichenbach scored goals within a minute of one another. Lizzie York added a goal late in the first half and Reichenbach added another in the second half before Cony’s Kami Lambert scored a late goal to make it a 4-1 final.
Three-time defending state champion Skowhegan is 2-0 this season while Cony falls to 0-2.
“We came into this game knowing they were going to be tough,” said York, who also had two assists. “In the beginning I think we kind of underestimated them but we came back because we knew we needed to work harder.”
The Indians took advantage of their 11-3 edge in penalty corners, scoring three times.
“Honestly we bring back plays from the 80s and 90s,” said senior midfielder Maliea Kelso, who had three assists. “After every single practice, we practice corners. We’ll go up on our own so we get them well done. In the beginning of the season it’s kind of hard but by the end of the season it’s sufficient.”
According to Doughty, success on corners and overall play depends on adjusting to the playing surface.
“It depends on the surface we’re playing on totally,” she said. “If we’re on turf we have certain plays for turf. If we’re on grass (we have others).’
Starting goalie Emily Douglas was ill and unavailable, leaving those duties to sophomore Abigail Jones (eight saves). Jones received her baptism of fire early as she stopped bullets from both Kelso and York to keep the game scoreless.
“We didn’t know before today what my other goalie’s status was going to be,” Cony coach Holly Daigle said. “Abbie came out and played really confident. She did a great job today.”
The Rams got caught on defense a couple of times as they failed to protect the weak side of the cage. Furbush tipped in a a left to right show from Kelso then Reichenbach followed with a weak-side shot of Kelso’s long pass that made it all the way across the goalmouth. York’s goal was just a hard blast from the top of the circle. Both York and Kelso are seniors who have committed to play at Hofstra and Northeastern next fall and have played together for several years.
“We’ve been playing the same positions since we were in the seventh grade,” Kelso said. “Now we’re seniors in high school. It’s a pretty long time.”
Second half play was fairly even. Both teams took five shots with Jones and Skowhegan’s Mackenzie McConnell each making four saves. The Indians went up 4-0 midway through the period when Reichenbach knocked in a rebound of yet another hard shot by York.
“We definitely lost some key players but I think we’re coming along pretty good,” York said. “We’ve been working really hard in the off-season all year.”
Lambert scored following a penalty corner with 24 seconds left to play with the assist going to Sophie Whitney.
“When we got our passing game going we were able to move the ball up the field really well,” Daigle said. “But Skowhegan being a really skilled team almost every ball we hit they made a stop. They cut to the ball well. There were moments when we had the ball in our offensive 25, we were playing a little defensively and weren’t getting enough people up in the circle.”
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