BRUNSWICK — Bowdoin College’s unbeaten field hockey team began the NCAA Division III tournament in dominating fashion Saturday afternoon.

The top-ranked Polar Bears looked impressive on their way to a 5-1 win over Keene State in the second round of the NCAA Division III Region I Tournament at Ryan Field.

Bowdoin will host Wellesley at 1 p.m. Sunday for a spot in next weekend’s Final Four at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.

The Polars Bears (19-0), who have four national championships during the past eight seasons, came into the game as Division III’s lone unbeaten team, but that doesn’t seem to mean much to them at the moment.

“We never look toward Sunday or next weekend or anything like that,” junior forward Kimmy Ganong said. “We always focus on what’s going on now.”

Added Coach Nicky Pearson: “We don’t ever focus on the fact we’re undefeated. Right now, we feel like we’re starting a new season, and we’re 1-0 now and hopefully we’ll be 2-0 tomorrow.”

As well as they played against the Owls (17-8), the Little East Conference champions, Pearson feels the Polar Bears are capable of playing much better.

“I don’t know if we were a little bit nervous to start off with, but we seemed to play rather reserved,” Pearson said. “Rather than really stepping up and being first to the ball, we were sort of waiting a little bit to see what happened, which is a little bit out of character.”

Keene State Coach Amy Watson was impressed by the Polar Bears.

“This is the best team we’ve played against this year,” she said. “They poised. They’re very skilled from top to bottom. They’re well disciplined. They have a good plan of attack, and they execute it well.”

The Polar Bears held a 30-2 edge in shots and a 12-1 edge in penalty corners.

“We knew what kind of things we had to do to try to keep them at bay at bit, but they’re undefeated and No. 1 in the country for a reason,” Watson said.

The Polar Bears led 4-1 at halftime and outshot the Owls 22-1.

Five minutes into the game, Ganong scored the first of her two goals, sending a rebound into the left side of the net.

Sami Smith tied the score at 10:59 by putting in a shot off the left post on Keene State’s second foray of the game into the Bowdoin end.

Ganong and Liz Znamierowski scored goals less than two minutes apart to give Bowdoin a 3-1 lead less than 25 minutes into the game. Ganong’s goal came off a feed from Kelsey Mullaney, while Kelsey Bumgardner assisted on Znamierowski’s goal.

With less than four minutes left in the first half, Rachel Kennedy put in a penalty stroke for her team-high 31st goal of the season to give the Polar Bears a three-goal lead.

Sarah Jane Weill completed the scoring when she converted a pass from Kennedy into a goal on a shot from the top of the circle with 12 minutes left in the game.

“We can play a lot better than we did today,” Ganong said. “We came out a little flat. But what’s great about this team is regardless of how we start, we always know how to finish. We always know how to come out on top.”

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