WATERVILLE — Sometimes, as the saying goes, in the playoffs you want to survive and advance. The Messalonskee High School field hockey survived Tuesday afternoon, but the Class A North quarterfinal game did nothing to test the Eagles’ survival skills.
Messalonskee scored seven goals in the second half, blowing open the game against Hampden to take a 9-0 win. No. 2 Messalonskee, now 13-2, will take on No. 3 Cony (10-3-2) in the regional semifinals. No. 7 Hampden ends the season at 6-8-1.
“That was a great game for us. I think we’re really starting to get our good passing lanes,” Messalonskee coach Katie McLaughlin said. “It was a really good showing for us, I think, a really good confidence booster. A lot of our forwards scored today. They’ve been struggling a little bit.”
Ahead 2-0 at halftime, Messalonskee doubled its lead in the first five minutes of the second half, when Lydia Dexter scored the first two of her four second half goals.
“Our passing was better than it has been all season,” Dexter said.
Ally Turner scored with 22:17 left in the game to push the Eagles lead to 5-0, and Dexter added two more goals, making it 7-0 with 7:05 to play. Dexter’s fourth and final goal was a hard shot from the left of the top of the circle, which found the right corner of the cage.
Messalonskee dominated possession throughout the game, limiting the Broncos to just two penalty corners and one shot on net. Hannah Pinney made one save for the shutout. The Eagles, on the other hand, peppered Hampden constantly. Messalonskee had 13 penalty corners, including five in the final 15 minutes of the first half, when the Eagles were unable to build on their early 2-0 lead.
Chloe Tilley got the Eagles on the board with 23:26 left in the first half, when she took a pass from Haley Lowell from the top of the circle to the front of the net, and slid the ball past Hampden goalie Ruby Ramsay. At 21:02, Turner took a pass from Dexter and scored on a breakaway.
Kaitlyn Smith and Lowell closed out the scoring for Messalonskee.
Travis Lazarczyk — 861-9242
tlazarczyk@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @TLazarczykMTM
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