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Battling
Woodstock Academy’s Eliza Dutson (24) battles a Stonington offensive player for the ball just to the left of the Centaurs’ cage Sept. 29. Photo by Marc Allard.
The goal for The Woodstock Academy field hockey team was to beat Stonington for a first time in the sport.
The Centaurs kept it close, but fell just short to the Bears, 4-2, Sept. 29 on the turf field on the South Campus of the Academy.
That was just one of the reasons why the Centaurs wanted to win pretty badly.
“I tried to give them some motivation because we also had some alumni coming to watch and I wanted them to do it for (the injured) Syd (Cournoyer) on the sidelines. We just couldn’t pull it out,” said Centaurs coach Lauren Gagnon.
It meant the Centaurs were 0-2 for the week.
They also lost to Waterford Sept. 27, 4-3 and are now 2-4 on the season and 2-3 in the Eastern Connecticut Conference.
The Centaurs struggled early against the Bears (5-0-1) who took 10 shots on goalie Rachel Roberts while Woodstock Academy took only one long distance attempt at the Stonington cage.
“We’re definitely a second half team and we’ve talked about that,” Gagnon said. “We’ve talked about the fact that they need to get their butts in gear to begin with. Why do we have to be down in order to score?” Gagnon said.
But the Centaurs did find themselves in a first half hole.
Roberts made saves on six of the shots that were flung at her, but two snuck past.
Miranda Arruda and Casey Boumenot put together a nice give-and-go inside the scoring box. Arruda passed to her right to Boumenot and then continued on to the cage with Boumenot giving it back for the Arruda goal with 6 minutes, 24 seconds left in the first half.
Roberts was on her own with 13 seconds to play in the half as Arruda and Boumenot had a 2-on-1 break.
Arruda this time took the shot, it bounced off the post and right on to the stick of Boumenot who re-directed it home.
Despite the two goals, the Centaurs did put on a fine defensive performance in the half. Gagnon thought it was the longest stretch, in her coaching tenure, that the Centaurs kept the Bears off the scoreboard.
That happened despite the fact that Gagnon has had to piecemeal together a defensive unit due to injuries such as the one suffered by Cournoyer the week before.
The Centaurs also disrupted all three of the Stonington corners with Eliza Dutson causing havoc for the Bears set plays.
“Eliza has an amazing attitude and gives us an amazing effort all of the time. She is always willing to put her body on the line and do whatever takes to either stop the ball or put it into the net,” Gagnon said. “She is an amazing threat anywhere on the field. It’s always a tough question. Where do I put her? Where do I need her most?”
The Centaurs fell behind by three when Elena Korinek took a pass from Arruda and put it into the cage 10:23 into the second half.
That goal woke the Centaurs up.
The Centaurs began to challenge and got a couple of corners with one of them producing the Centaurs first goal.
Avery Jones took the corner in deep and handed it off to Abby Kruger who scored her second goal of the season with 15:12 left.
Just 2 ½ minutes later, senior Abbe Lecuyer challenged the net, took a shot and took keeper Claire Evans out of the play.
The rebound on the shot went right to Lecuyer’s teammate, Hannah Chubbuck.
“I knocked the goalie down to the ground with my body and Chubs just flicked it right in,” Lecuyer said.
Unfortunately, the Centaurs could not get the equalizer.
Arruda put the cap on the contest with her second goal of the afternoon with 6:52 to play when she scored off her own rebound.
“A little disappointing, but we can always come back and get them next time. We played our 60 minutes of field hockey as a team like we were supposed to, didn’t let anybody down and it was a good game,” Lecuyer said.
LeCuyer had her own personal highlight earlier in the week when the senior scored her first career goal.
Dutson passed the ball to Lecuyer and she turned and put the ball in with 20:21 left in the game against Waterford Sept. 27.
“It felt so good,” Lecuyer said. “I was almost in tears when I scored that goal.”
It tied the game up for the moment for the Centaurs.
“She gets the girls really hyped up when she goes in. She brings an energy to the field and she has these big, strong hits so if she rips a shot and it goes off the (goalie’s) pads, we will rebound it in. She’s very distracting at high forward. She and Sam Mowry make (other teams) notice them and it really distracts them from the other players carrying the ball up the field,” Gagnon said.
Unfortunately for the Centaurs, 10 minutes after Lecuyer’s goal, Hannah Linder scored off the third assist of the game by Cassidy Susi to give Waterford (3-2, 3-1 ECC) the win.
Mowry and Dutson both scored off Rachel Canedy assists for Woodstock Academy.
Marc Allard
Sports Information Director
The Woodstock Academy
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