BATH

Monday’s Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference field hockey clash between Morse High School and Oceanside was a game of possession sequences.

Thankfully for the Shipbuilders, the last sequence was theirs.

After grabbing an early lead and succumbing to loads of pressure from the Mariners at the tail end of the first half, the hosts regained control and reeled off three unanswered goals to complete the comeback and secure a 4-2 win.

“We talked a lot about playing through the whole game,” Morse coach Kerri Reno said. “We were disappointed with our finish against Waterville (a 2-2 tie), so we knew that we had to come out and play this game from start to finish and the girls definitely did that.”

Morse (3-4-1) was lucky to give up just two goals at the end of the first half, but quickly put a stop to the Oceanside (1-7-2) attack when the field switched in the second. The Shipbuilders earned three penalty corners in less than three minutes to get things going, eventually testing Mariners’ netminder Jazzmin Johnson with two point-blank shots.

Johnson fended them off, but the score soon changed. On another penalty corner, Madeline Skroski weaved her way through traffic in front of the cage and finally beat Johnson on a punch-in with just under 15 minutes left.

Of Morse’s seven penalty corners, five came in the first 15 minutes of the second half. All it took was more intensity.

“We didn’t look like we wanted the ball as much,” Reno said of the first half. “We didn’t look like we were as hungry for the ball as Oceanside. They were definitely coming alive — they were capitalizing on a lot of the plays. I felt like we could improve on our intensity and that was the one thing we worked on for second half. We came out with more fire.”

“We talked a lot about passing,” Morse forward Vanessa St. Pierre said. “We’ve done a lot of conditioning and passing stuff in practice and we just talked about how we needed to execute that in the game.”

Following an Oceanside timeout, it was St. Pierre that notched the eventual game-winner. With 2:27 left on the clock, she took a pass from Courtney Bodeau on the right and fired low past Johnson into the cage to make the score 3-2. Then in the final minute, she shot a failed clearance into an empty net to ice the game.

“She’s been working hard on her stick skills,” Reno said of St. Pierre. “Trying to find out when to move against the defense, when to send it. She’s worked a lot on her stick control and she really capitalized on it today.”

“We just kind of kept pushing through and working really hard,” St. Pierre said. “Executing the things we’ve been working on in practice.”

Split half

Morse got things going with a Lily Thibodeau goal in the fourth minute of the game and dominated possession out of the gate. Oceanside’s only chance in the first 17 minutes was a breakaway that KK Fifield barely managed to close down. But, the Mariners prevented a second goal from going into Johnson’s cage and when it was time for their first shot, they made it count.

After a through ball sent Macey Coffin into loads of space, she fended off resistance from behind and shot by Sophie Wilson in net to even the score. The Mariners took over possession for the rest of the half from there, earning two successive penalty corners in the final five minutes and eventually taking the lead on an Erin Dugen score.

On their second penalty corner of the game, Dugen took advantage of a deflection and punched in a ball past Wilson to take the lead.

On its heels, Morse absorbed more pressure and narrowly escaped conceding again before the break. Oceanside took four shots in the first half, but managed just one in the second. Wilson blocked two shots, while Johnson saved three on the other side. The Shipbuilders led on penalty corners, 3-2.

It was exactly the type of response Reno was looking for and exactly the type of result the players craved.

“It’s really great to see the work we’re putting in is paying off,” St. Pierre said.

Morse 4,
Oceanside 2

At McMann Field in Bath
Oceanside — 2 0 — 2
Morse — 1 3 — 4
Goals — (O) Macey Coffin, Erin
Dugen; (Mo) Vanessa St. Pierre 2,
Lily Thibodeau, Madeline Skroski.
Assists — (Mo) Emma Warner,
Courtney Bodeau.
Shots on goal — Morse 6, Oceanside
4.
Saves — (O) Jazzmin Johnson 3,
(Mo) Sophie Wilson 3.
Penalty corners — Morse 7, Oceanside 3.
Records — Morse 3-4-1, Oceanside
1-7-2.
Up next for the Shipbuilders —
Wednesday at Nokomis, 5:15 p.m.