CUMBERLAND – Eliza Porter of Greely is counting on her final field hockey season to be her most memorable.
And it’s turning out to be just that.
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Porter set a personal high with her sixth goal of the season Monday in a 3-1 victory against Lake Region in a Western Maine Conference game at Greely High.
“It’s my highest-scoring season since middle school,” Porter said after helping the Rangers (8-3) to their fourth straight victory. “I’m really excited about that.
“I think I’ve become a lot more intense. There’s a lot of pressure because this is my last year playing field hockey. I’m not going to pursue it in college so I’m really happy with the way I’ve been playing so far.”
Porter’s goal came near the end of the first half and turned out to be the winner.
She started the play on a corner, then charged to the front of the net with several teammates, eventually sending the ball — and herself — into the net.
The score gave the Rangers a 2-0 halftime lead.
“Eliza has really stepped up,” said Greely Coach Kristina Lane-Prescott. “Probably the best part of being a coach is watching players kind of pull everything they’ve learned together, and then all of a sudden one year you’ll see that it just clicks. Sometimes it’s earlier for girls and sometimes it’s later, but this is definitely Eliza’s year where it has finally clicked.
“She knows where to be at the right time and her positioning in the circle is really key. That’s definitely benefited us this season.”
Porter also played a role in the opening goal, scored just over a minute into the game off a corner. Ceci Hodgkins ended the play by pouncing on a loose ball, then popping it over the head of Lake Region goalkeeper Meghan VanLoan.
Six minutes later the Lakers (4-4-2) applied their best offense pressure of the half while looking to tie it.
The best chance came off the second of what turned out to be three consecutive corners. A three-way passing play ended up on the stick of Meghan Skarbinski, but her attempt was kicked aside by Rangers goalkeeper Emma Seymour.
Following the save, Greely called a timeout.
“I noticed some changes that the Lake Region girls were doing,” said Lane-Prescott. “They were pushing all their offensive players up to the 25, so that meant I needed to adjust our defense to make sure that our forward and inners were coming back to help out our defense.
“That’s how Lake Region was beating us to the ball because we didn’t have enough defense back. So I had to make that adjustment and give them a little boost because they were definitely struggling.”
The fine-tuning paid off. Lake Region was unable to generate another quality chance in the half.
Greely made it 3-0 after 10 minutes of the second half on a goal by Rachel Hanson.
The Lakers spoiled Greely’s shutout bid with just over five minutes left when Monica Couvillion scored.
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