DEXTER — Sarah Spahr was in the right place at the right time. Twice.
The senior tied the game late in regulation and then won it in the fifth round of penalty corners, lifing the No. 3 Winthrop field hockey team to a 2-1 double-overtime win over No. 2 Dexter in the Class C North regional semifinals on Thursday.
“It’s pretty awesome. The girls were just amazing,” Winthrop coach Jessica Merrill said. “It’s pretty awesome for what we’ve gone through all season.”
Winthrop (13-2-1) will face the winner of a matchup between No. 1 MCI and No. 5 Boothbay in the regional finals on Wednesday.
Dexter (13-3-0) took the lead on the only goal of the first half, when Kaitlyn Webber scored at the 17:24 mark after carrying the play throughout the early going.
Rambler goalie Corinna Coulton (16 saves) and the defense in front of her were on their game in the opening 30 minutes to keep Winthrop within striking distance.
“They were moving the ball better than we were,” Merrill said. “Their intensity in the first half was definitely higher than ours was. We played a lot of defense in that first half.”
After a lackluster start, the Ramblers stormed out in the second half, racking up nine penalty corners and forcing Dexter’s Megan Peach to make most of her 13 saves in the half.
“We discussed emotion. We discussed heart,” Merrill said. “We really tried to keep it positive at halftime, and so we talked a lot about what we did in practice and what got us to where we were.
“We came out and were the aggressors in the second half. Our heart and senior leadership came through. They really woke up.”
Even still, it wasn’t until just 8:31 remained in regulation that the Ramblers cashed in on one of their corner opportunities. Spahr got to a loose ball in the circle and lifted it into the back of the cage to tie it at 1-1.
Both teams had chances to win the game in one of the two seven-on-seven overtime sessions, but the game remained scoreless into the sudden-victory penalty corner rounds.
From a spread set, Katie Perkins took the inset pass and pushed it into the middle, where Spahr pounced on a rebound off Peach’s pads to score the winning goal.
“Took us a while to get in our gear, but credit to (Dexter),” Merrill said. “They made us change a lot of things we like to do. It just took us a little bit longer to adjust to the little things.”
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