It was a light week for The Woodstock Academy field hockey team.
That probably was a good thing as the Centaurs are battling some illness and injuries.
“We were looking pretty tired,” said coach Lauren Gagnon. “We were down a couple of subs, got a lot of illness and a couple of injuries now, that definitely hurt us quite a bit.”
The Centaurs also had been jostled around practice-wise.
Torrential rain forced their game with Stonington and practice to be canceled Sept. 18.
“It was hard to mentally prepare yourselves,” Gagnon said. “We were prepared to play Stonington. We missed that game, had to prep for East Lyme and we really only had a half of a good practice to prep for the game. It showed.”
The Vikings took advantage of the Centaurs' woes to score a 5-2 victory.
East Lyme took the early 3-0 lead on goals by Nancy Alden, Caroline Real and Katie Durkee.
Woodstock Academy (2-2, 2-1 Eastern Connecticut Conference) suffered another blow when defensive standout Sydney Cournoyer injured her knee.
“We’re waiting to hear on how she is doing,” Gagnon said late last week. “That was definitely a big morale blow to the girls.”
Eliza Dutson came over to the sideline to be with her friend when Gagnon asked her if she was ready to return.
“She gave Sydney a pat on the head and I told her, ‘Don’t worry about her, she will be fine. You’re going to go in and score for her.’” Gagnon said.
Dutson did just that to cut the Centaurs deficit to two.
The injury also did have a silver lining as it gave Katie Boshka a little more playing time back in the defensive end.
“She had never played defense. She had these amazing moves she was doing and she did them all game long. She came up with some huge defensive stops. We were really happy with her performance,” Gagnon said.
Samantha Mowry scored for the Centaurs in the second half but East Lyme countered with a pair of their own, one by Alden, the other by Sarah Healy, to post the victory.
Marc Allard
Sports Information Director
The Woodstock Academy

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