WINSLOW — It was a banner day for Winslow, the team and the player.

The Winslow High School field hockey team defeated Winthrop 4-0 in Saturday’s Eastern Maine Class C semifinal, and all four goals were scored by junior Mackenzie Winslow.

The second-seeded Black Raiders (15-1-0) play top-seeded Foxcroft for the regional championship Tuesday at Hampden Academy. Third-seeded Winthrop finishes at 12-3-1.

Winslow, the player, had never scored more than two goals in a game let alone four. In fact, she’s not the team’s leading scorer. But she was in the right place at the right time Saturday and pulled the trigger each time, scoring twice in the first half and twice in the second.

“It’s crazy,” Winslow said. “Our leading scorer is Brooke (Haskell). What we work on mostly in practice is passing and teamwork and talking.”

The Black Raiders dominated large portions of the game and outshot the Ramblers 18-6. Winslow put her team on the board just over six minutes in with a hard shot near the top of the circle that may have deflected off a a defender. The Ramblers had their best scoring chance of the game just over a minute later. But with goalie Delaney Wood pulled out of position, sweeper Katie Smith moved in front of the cage to stop the shot.

“That was a huge save,” Winslow coach Mary Beth Bourgoin said. “That was in and she got it out which is the job of the sweep.”

Winslow scored her second goal of the game with 10 minutes left in the half when she fired a right-to-left shot past Winthrop goalie Alyssa Arsenault following a penalty corner.

“She’s got a nice shot,” Bourgoin said. “They were pretty shots.”

Winthrop coach Jess Merrill moved Cat Ouellette up to center forward and brought Emma Spahr back to midfield in an effort to generate more offense, but the move didn’t translate into goals.

“They stopped a lot of balls,” Merrill said. “Their stick was on everything. Their crosses were wonderful, their drives were awesome. We just couldn’t stop them when we were on the attack.”

The Black Raiders passed the ball well, particularly in the penalty circle, and in this game Winslow was the beneficiary.

“We’ve worked a lot on that,” Bourgoin said.

Winslow got her hat trick with 10 minutes left to play with a rocket of a shot from 15 feet that beat Arsenault up high. She wrapped up her four-goal game five minutes later when Sarah Wildes crossed the ball to the middle and she fired a hard low shot into the goal.

“This is probably the best team I’ve been on,” Winslow said. “Everybody works so well together. It’s a great atmosphere.”

The Black Raiders held a 15-7 advantage in penalty corners. Arsenault finished with eight saves while Wood made three in recording her 12th shutout of the season.

Gary Hawkins — 621-5638

ghawkins@centralmaine.com

Copy the Story Link