FREEPORT — Fifth-seeded Lake Region took early second-half momentum and rolled to a 4-0 victory against fourth-ranked Freeport in a Class B South field hockey quarterfinal Tuesday.

Lake Region (8-7) will play at top-ranked York (12-2-1) in the semifinals Friday.

“No matter who we play there’s no pressure on us,” Lake Region Coach Pauline Webb said. “The girls played relaxed and with confidence.”

The Falcons (9-5-1) were eliminated in the quarterfinals for the fifth consecutive season since moving to Class B in 2013, but Coach Marcia Wood said the Lakers deserved to win.

“Kudos to Lake Region outhustling us and beating us to every ball,” Wood said. “We tried to adjust to that but they just beat us to the ball. That’s the bottom line right there. When you get beat to the ball, there’s not much you can do. They were relentless.”

The Falcons beat Lake Region 1-0 on Sept. 8, but that was part of the Lakers’ 0-5 start, when they totaled just two goals.

In 10 games since, Lake Region has 21 goals and has been shut out just twice.

“At the beginning of the season we couldn’t get the ball in the goal,” Webb said. “(Today) we just wanted to get as many (goals) as we could in as many ways as we could because it’s playoff time.”

The Lakers held a decided edge in play during a scoreless first half, compiling a 3-1 advantage in shots and in penalty corners.

The Lakers opened the scoring five minutes into the second half when Olivia Deschenes converted a feed from Dessi Berry on the fourth of a series of penalty corners awarded to them at the start of the second half.

About five minutes later, Paige Davis made it 2-0 when she slammed a penalty stroke past goalie Katelyn Rouleau after a defender was caught trapping the ball in front of the Freeport cage.

Lake Region, which had a 7-1 edge in shots in the second half, stayed on the attack.

“I told the girls that Freeport is a great team and we were not going to settle for what the score was,” Webb said. “We were just going to keep playing (field) hockey and score as many goals as we could.”

With less than 10 minutes remaining in the game, Davis sent a long crossing pass toward the left side of the goal to Delaney Meserve, who promptly slammed a crossing shot inside the far post to extend the lead to 3-0.

Less than three minutes later, Deschenes completed the scoring by putting a crossing shot into the right side after a shot by Davis bounced off the left post.

It was the fifth shutout of the season for the Lakers.

“The defense has been recovering well,” Webb said, referring to her team’s ability to switch quickly from offense to defensive mode. We’ve been working on some new patterns making sure the spacing (and) the communication is there, and our backs got their sticks on some great shots today.”

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