BATH

The Morse Shipbuilders broke open a one-goal game with three second-half goals to pull away for a 4-1 Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference victory in a high school field hockey game on Monday.

Vanessa St. Pierre registered three goals for Morse as the Shipbuilders improved to 3-0 on the season. Maranacook fell to 0-4.

Morse took the opening faceoff and immediately drove the ball into its own territory, where the teams played the majority of the first 10 minutes.

St. Pierre tallied the game’s first score at 19:54 when teamwork around the cage put the ball deep into the circle where she blasted it to the right of Maranacook goalie Alyssa Pratt for the score.

“We have a young team this year and I think it’s really cool how the team has merged together,” as St. Pierre commented on how the team is finding its flow.

Morse continued to possess the ball in the first half, putting pressure on the Maranacook defense and earning four penalty corners, but only putting two shots on goal in the first 30 minutes.

“We weren’t penetrating for some reason,” Morse coach Kerri Reno said. “We kept going wide, especially on our left. Our right side, however, kept pushing the ball into the middle too soon.”

The score remained 1-0 into the halftime break. Each team managed only two shots apiece in the opening half.

“We were a little sloppy in the first half. It looked like we thought that we had two wins and not too much to worry about,” Reno said. “It was a good reminder to us that any team is capable of winning any game and we need to play at our top level every day of the week.”

Second half

The second frame opened with more of the same pressure put on by the Shipbuilders. Five minutes in, Morse received a penalty corner and attempted a shot to the net, but Maranacook’s Emma Wadsworth was there on defense to swat the ball away.

“We’re still a new team and we’re focusing on our defense a lot,” Maranacook coach Ashley Work said. “I think our defense is pretty solid.”

Haylee Weeks and Brooke Stratton also contributed to the Black Bear defense in keeping Morse off the board.

That changed moments later, when freshman Addie Jung picked up the ball in front of the net and pushed it across for the score.

Five minutes later, St. Pierre scored again. It was clear Morse came out in the second half a little more determined.

“ We talked at halftime and they listened well,” Reno said. “They realized they needed to reevaluate a little since we’ve had a couple of games where we had three or four goals at the half and today only one.”

Meanwhile, Maranacook continued to show a little more life in the second half. Trailing 3-0, Maranacook’s Abygil Jacques received the ball in front of the net. Before she was able to shoot, Morse keeper Rebecca Click came out of the cage and challenged Jacques, forcing a change in possession.

“ We got a little more motivation at the half,” Work said. “They are good at motivating themselves, I just tell them what I want them to improve on. We’re going to work on improving to attack the goal more.”

With 8:20 on the clock, St. Pierre completed her hat trick, taking a deflection into the back of the cage for the goal.

“We were a little slow to start,” said the senior about the change of play in the two halves. “We took a step back and remembered what we were focusing on, here to do.”

Maranacook tallied its first goal of the season when Jacques pushed it past Click to make the score 4-1 with three minutes remaining.

That’s all Click allowed, as the senior goalie stopped five second half shots, seven for the game.

“She is getting used to games where we are down on the other end of the field a lot, so she needs to stay strong mentally,” Reno said of her goalie. “She is ready to see the ball more, we feel confident on how she’s been coming along after taking a year off. She’s getting more confidence and communicating with her defense more.”

And Reno knows that Thursday’s road game against 4- 0 Gardiner ( 4 p.m.) will be a good test for her team.

“It will be a good test. It’s our first away game and Gardiner is a different kind of team that we haven’t seen. We need to clean up some of our sloppiness that we had today,” adds Reno.

Each team had eight shots on goal, while Morse took the Black Bears in penalty corners, 10-1. Pratt turned away four shots in net for the visitors.

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