SKOWHEGAN — Youth seems to be kind to the Skowhegan field hockey team.
This season, the River Hawks are young. Real young. With a varsity roster of 23 players, 13 are either freshmen and sophomores, meaning more than half the roster are playing their first full varsity season after the coronavirus pandemic altered the 2020 fall season. Of the 10 upperclassmen, there is only one senior.
And yet, the River Hawks keep winning.
On Thursday, they edged rival Messalonskee 2-0 to improve to 4-0 and stay atop the Class A North standings.
It was the second game back for the River Hawks, who were shut down the previous week because of COVID-19 issues.
“We quarantined for a week,” Skowhegan midfielder Samantha Thebarge said. “Coming back and being strong as we have for the last two games with everyone gone, it’s really exciting that we can stick together and do it since we’re so young.”
Youth contributed to the outcome for the River Hawks, as sophomores Laney Lablanc and Gemma Kennedy each scored.
“They’re young, but they learn quickly, they work hard,” Skowhegan coach Paula Doughty said. “And they listen. That’s key.”
Skowhegan forward Norie Tibbetts added that work in the summer helped the team gel before the season.
Skowheganl’s Laney LeBlanc , front, saves the ball from going out of bounds as teammate Layla Conway helps from behind during a field hockey game Thursday in Skowhegan. Michael G. Seamans/Morning Sentinel
“I think this summer really paid off,” Tibbetts said. “We had a normal kind of summer where we got to do more normal practices as we’ve done in summers before, got to do some tournaments. Because we have a young team, we had the mindset that we have a young team, so we knew that we had to over-prepare. Before COVID, there were only two or three (upperclassmen) that were playing on varsity, so we knew we had to prepare and work around the difficulties of having a young team. Our entire team is super athletic, super dedicated to field hockey. Everyone on this team wants to win, they know the legacy of Skowhegan field hockey.”
In those four games, Skowhegan has tallied 19 goals and has allowed zero. In Thursday’s game, Skowhegan kept the pressure on Messalonskee’s end of the field for much of the contest. Doughty was quick to credit assistant coaches Tammie Veinotte and Kim Leo with the team’s success on defense.
“It’s been really amazing this year, to see those young kids come along,” Doughty said.
Messalonskee (6-3) fought Skowhegan hard defensively and received an added boost by the play of goalie Nealy Dillon in the second half. The Eagles recently had a five-game winning streak snapped in a 2-1 loss to Lewiston on Sept. 18.
“Messalonskee has always been our rival, so we knew we had to be a step above just coming to play a good game,” Skowhegan back Callaway LePage said.
Dave Dyer – 621-5640
ddyer@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @Dave_Dyer
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