SACO — All season long, the Thornton Academy field hockey team has looked to senior captain Taylor Ouellette to be a leader on the field.

Saturday, she became a leader in the record books as she led the seventh-seeded Golden Trojans to a 7-0 win over No. 10 Sanford in the preliminary round of the Class A South playoffs.

Ouellette scored three times to raise her career total to 63 – two more than former teammate Libby Pomerleau’s previous school record. Ouellette has 26 goals this season.

“Her offensive production is obviously huge for us,” said Thornton Academy Coach Lori Smith. “She’s been pretty impressive. She’s a sniper in front of the net.”

The Trojans advance to a Wednesday quarterfinal against No. 2 Massabesic, the reigning regional champion. Late in September, Thornton Academy handed the Mustangs their first loss of the season, 4-1.

Ouellette got the Trojans (10-5) rolling early against Sanford, opening the scoring less than 10 minutes into the game off a pass from sophomore Lily Stark.

“We had people that went unmarked and she was one of them a couple times,” said Sanford Coach Diana Walker. “If you’re unmarked and you’re a good player, you’re going to hit the goal.”

Henaire, a junior, put home an unassisted goal less than five minutes later.

“I was pleased,” said Smith. “We’ve now gone further than last year’s team, and that was a veteran team. This is a young team, but they played well. Getting those two early goals definitely helped.”

Ouellette tacked on her second goal late in the first half. Freshman Aliyah Bureau assisted.

“Typically, a lot of her goals have come from getting passes from Libby when we had her, or (Catherine Henaire),” Smith said of Ouellette. “She’s great on the left post and had kind of mastered that. This year, her goals have also come on a lot of breakaways, and she’s really worked on her one-on-one skills.”

A flurry of offense just over 10 minutes into the second half resulted in three goals in six minutes. Sophomore Olivia Lambert notched an unassisted goal, Ouellette got her third of the day with an assist from fellow senior captain Claire Decker, and sophomore Madison Skillings got unassisted goal to make it 6-0.

Ouellette’s final goal was a back-handed shot – a new wrinkle in an already impressive repertoire.

“I was happy because I’ve been trying to get her to shoot reverse, and she did that today,” said Smith. “She’s working on those skills all the time. She plays in the offseason and is always trying to add to her game.”

Bureau scored the final goal, as Decker picked up another assist.

“They followed their shots, they had backups, they kept their sticks down through transition, and our transition game wasn’t very good,” said Walker.

“We clicked at different times and had some really nice passing sequences, but we’ve played much better than this. It wasn’t a total team effort. They outplayed us. It was that simple.”

 

This article was updated at 9:10 p.m. on 10/14 to correct Thornton Academy’s previous scoring record, and the score of its win over Massabesic earlier this season.

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