Massabesic’s Logan Champlin, center, controls the ball between Biddeford’s Peyton McKeown, left, and Jada Kimball during the Mustangs’ 7-0 victory in Waterboro Wednesday. Champlin scored a pair of goals in the win.
Exactly two weeks after Massabesic opened its season at home with a shutout loss to rival Sanford, the Mustangs looked like a different team on its home field, scoring five first-half goals en route to a 7-0 victory over Biddeford in an SMAA field hockey game at Massabesic High School Wednesday.
The Mustangs (4-2) drew their first penalty corner just two minutes into the game, and it was a successful one, as Emma Desrochers hit the back of the goal near the left post on the play.
“We’ve had games where we’ve had multiple corners and just too sloppy a pass or not a crisp enough pass. We’ve been working on getting the passes off quicker, getting the shots off quicker so that we can take advantage of our men-up opportunities,” said Massabesic head coach Michele Martin-Moore, whose team squandered seven corners in the loss to Sanford.
Massabesic spent plenty of time in the Biddeford (2-3) circle, but finding the back of the net again proved to be difficult. Much of that can be attributed to Tigers freshman goalie Taylor Wildes, who made a bevy of saves over the next 10 minutes.
“She did awesome. She surprises me every, single day,” Biddeford head coach Caitlin Albert said of Wildes. “She’s never played goal before, so we sent her to a camp this summer, and she just gets better every game. She’s not afraid to dive. The height definitely is something, too. She can pretty much be the whole length of the net. But yeah, she’s doing awesome.”
But the Mustangs kept coming, and eventually were able to beat Wildes. Logan Champlin was successful with a shot from the right side midway through the first half, Maggie Redman scored on another penalty corner less than three minutes later, and Emma Rutledge made it 4-0 just 101 seconds after that.
“We’ve been really focusing hard on as soon as we get the ball in the circle, get that shot off, don’t be looking to pass so much,” said Martin-Moore. “We were looking to pass too much. We were a little bit too unselfish.”
Champlin scored on a put-back with less than four minutes left before halftime, and the Mustangs nearly scored once more right before the horn, but still took a 5- 0 lead into intermission.
Massabesic was awarded a penalty corner two minutes into the second half, but Wildes and the Biddeford defense stuffed the scoring opportunity. The Mustangs came back with a Rutledge goal less than two minutes later, however.
Kaylee St. Laurent rounded out the scoring with less than five minutes remaining.
“You can tell that they’re a good field hockey team, they play well together, they’re in the right spots at the right time. So any type of rebound, or as long as they’re covering the spots in the circle, and they’re good at their onetouches – and that’s what they scored three or four goals on,” said Albert. “We’re not covering space and they were.”
Wildes finished with 30 saves in net for the Tigers. Kelley Wescott and Madyson Pomerleau combined to stop five shots for Massabesic.
“That goalie played out of her head. She really did,” Martin-Moore said of Wildes. “She did a nice job.”
The Mustangs have now won four straight since the season-opening loss to Sanford and an overtime loss to defending state champion Scarborough.
Martin-Moore said those losses were a good lesson learned for her team, which she said is “starting to really click now.”
— Sports Staff Writer Wil Kramlich can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 323 or sports@journaltribune.com. Follow him on Twitter @WilTalkSports.
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