OAKLAND — Makaela Michonski’s most spectacular goal Saturday afternoon was the one she plucked out of the air and deflected into the corner of the cage. The most damaging was the one two and a half minutes into the game, or maybe it was the other one she scored in the first half.
Michonski scored those three, then added an insurance goal in the game’s final minute, giving her two four-goal games already this season, and giving Skowhegan a 4-0 Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Class A field hockey victory over Messalonskee.
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“We were so excited,” Michonski said. “We love coming to play Messalonskee. We always get really into it and we play our best game.”
Messalonskee entered the game with a 3-0-0 record and zero goals allowed.
Michonski made it 1-0 with 27:30 left in the first half when she converted a long pass from the right side by Rylie Blanchett. With 7:05 left in the half, Allison Lancaster sent another long pass into the circle, and Michonski drilled in a turnaround shot for a 2-0 lead.
Ironically, the Eagles outplayed Skowhegan (4-0) over the first half as a whole. But Indians back Erica Blake had a defensive save on a shot by Emily York, and goalie Anne-Marie Provencal cut off the angles well and finished with six saves.
“I thought Anne-Marie played great,” Skowhegan coach Paula Doughty said. “To me, she is coming into her own this year.”
Skowhegan had a much better transition game in the second half and that led to more penalty corners. Still, the Eagles had two excellent chances to score in the first 12 minutes of the half.
First, York controlled a rebound and got behind Provencal for an instant, but Skowhegan midfielder Sarah Finnemore jumped in and steered the ball away. About five minutes later, Messalonskee forward Lynnae Luettich was trapped on the end line on the left side of the goal. Somehow, Luettich guided a reverse-stick flip past her defender and Provencal to the center of the cage — but Skowhegan’s Mikayla Bolduc was there and knocked the ball away.
That play was on a penalty corner with about 18 minutes left and it was Messalonskee’s last corner of the game. Skowhegan clicked all over the field the rest of the way, but Doughty and her players did see one major area they’d like to improve on: Conditioning.
“That’s not their fault. That’s my fault,” Doughty said. “We’ve been working on technical things, which I think helped us. But I think they see writing on the wall — running on the wall, let’s put it that way.”
Messalonskee, which had defeated Cony 9-0 two days earlier, did not finish in the circle as well as it had in previous games. The Eagles want to see what they can do when they bring their best game against Skowhegan, but first they have to do that.
“What we look like when we play is very different against Skowhegan vs. any other game,” Messalonskee coach Katie McLaughlin said. “We really need to come out with the same mentality that we have against any other teams that we play — that confidence. We need to definitely work on lots of little things out on that field and strategy-wise.”
Matt DiFilippo — 861-9243
mdifilippo@centralmaine.com
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