WINSLOW — The Winslow field hockey team vowed never to let what happened two years ago happen again.
The top-seeded Black Raiders scored twice in less than four minutes to begin a Class B North quarterfinal Tuesday against John Bapst and never let up, rolling to a 9-0 win over the No. 8 Crusaders. Sophomore Sage Clukey scored three goals, while Bodhi Littlefield and Silver Clukey each scored twice in the win. Winslow (13-2-0) will host No. 5 Lawrence — an upset winner over Maine Central Institute — in a regional semifinal Saturday.
John Bapst finished 7-7-1.
“Playoff games, very exciting. Love to come in here and work hard with my team,” Littlefield said. “I thought it was a great game, just the vibe of the whole game. That’s what I loved about it.”
In 2017, Winslow entered the tournament as an undefeated No. 1 seed before being stunned by Nokomis in the quarterfinals. The Black Raiders still carry lessons with them from that day two Octobers ago.
“It still sits with them. It still sits with me,” Winslow coach Mary Beth Bourgoin said. “It’s playoffs, and you never know what people will bring. We’ve worked on not wanting to let down. You can’t do that in playoffs. You have to bring it the whole 60 minutes.”
“I’ll never be over that,” Littlefield added. “Never take a team lightly. Anyone can come out and get you. We’re a good team, so teams are going to be out for us every game and we’ve got to bring it. We can’t sit on our heels. That’s something I’ve learned from that.”
The proof was in the proverbial pudding on Tuesday.
Silver Clukey opened the scoring with the first of her two first-half goals just 60 seconds after the opening whistle. Littlfield doubled the lead 2:06 later, and the Black Raiders were off and running.
Emboldened by the early two-goal advantage, Winslow carried all of the play for the first half, capping a nearly flawless first 30 minutes with three more goals in the final 5:25 of the period. Each of the Clukey sisters rattled the back of the cage with shots before Kassidy Bibeau made it 5-0 with 56.8 seconds to go.
“Our passing was really strong today,” Sage Clukey said. “We work on that a lot, and it was one of the things that really helped us. We were really excited, really hype for this game, and I think us coming together really happened today.”
It took until nearly nine minute had expired in the second half before John Bapst even registered a shot attempt.
By then, though, Winslow’s lead had ballooned to 8-0 (thanks to Taylor Rodriguez, Karlie Ramsdell and Sage Clukey goals) and the only thing left to look for was whether the Black Raiders could see out the shutout. That responsibility fell to backup goalie Lainey Bell — a freshman — who made two point-blank saves on Crusader Audra Brooks in succession with nine minutes remaining in the contest.
“I liked the way they stepped on the field with a purpose and with a focus,” Bourgoin said. “That’s what I wanted them to do, and they did it. They brought the energy, they brought the gamesmanship, they just brought it all.”
Winslow and Lawrence met once in the regular season, in the second-to-last game of the year on Oct. 10. The Black Raiders won, 5-0.
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