FARMINGTON — After playing Messalonskee High School tough in its season opener, the Cony field hockey team showed it may be ready to compete amongst the upper echelon of Class A North on Friday afternoon.
Goalkeeper Jessica Lee made a tremendous diving stick save to prevent a goal 5 minutes, 25 seconds into the second half, and 1:20 later Lindsay Watts scored off an assist from Allee Cloutier to help give Cony a 1-0 victory in Farmington.
“I feel like we’re in a really good place right now. Things are coming together,” Cony coach Holly Daigle said. “We know that every team out there is just going to keep improving as the season goes on. We’re not in any different situation, but we’re in a good place two games in.”
The Rams (1-1) — who dropped a 1-0 decision against the Eagles in their season opener Wednesday — once again showed early on Friday that they were ready to compete against a quality opponent in Mt. Blue (1-1), yet neither team could get on the scoreboard in the opening frame.
Shots were even at four apiece and Cony held a 4-0 edge in corners in the first half, yet it was the Cougars who nearly got on the board first.
After advancing the ball into the circle, it appeared — with Lee slightly out of position after a strong move from the Cougar attacker — that a goal was almost certain. At the last minute, though, Lee dove back from left to right, extending her stick and preventing the ball from going into the back of the cage.
After the initial stop, danger was not yet averted, but fortunately for the Rams Kami Lambert was in position to clear the ball away from.
“We had them all marked up. They didn’t have anybody that was open to take the ball,” Lee said. “My teammates just got it out and they couldn’t stop them from there.”
The strong clear helped facilitate the Rams’ fast break, allowing Cloutier to find Watts for the score just moments later.
“With a team like Mt. Blue one goal is not even close to being enough,” Daigle said. “We knew that we had to make some defensive stops. We were tired. We had a lot of girls play a lot of minutes this game so there were some tired legs, but they were tough.”
The Cougars very nearly proved Daigle right about eight minutes after Watts’ score when Mt. Blue secured its first corner of the contest.
Mt. Blue managed to get the ball in front of the cage, but could not get a clean stick on it and Cony once again cleared the ball away to maintain its advantage.
“We had several opportunities to score and we just didn’t finish it,” Mt. Blue coach Jody Harmon said. “That’s what we have to do. That’s been our issue, getting the ball in the cage. We showed it (Friday). We had several chances to do it and we just didn’t follow through.”
Evan Crawley — 621-5640
ecrawley@mainetoday.com
Twitter: @Evan_Crawley
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