Offense was hard to come by in the opening 30 minutes as the team’s combined five shots and five corners. Winthrop capitalized on the few chances it had in during that time, scoring twice en route to the 3-0 victory.
It was the second 3-0 for Winthrop this season against Lisbon. The first one came at Lisbon on Sept. 19.
“We are a passing team and we pass really well, but we tend to play how some other teams tend to play sometimes,” Winthrop coach Jessica Merrill said. “When they start hitting, we start getting a little frantic and trying to keep our composure and focus on what we do well.”
It was the second straight game for the Greyhounds in which they were shutout, as they lost to Oak Hill 5-0 on Friday. They ended the regular season on a two-game losing streak after having a five-game win streak.
Coach Julie Petrie didn’t want to compare the two losses.
“I don’t think we passed the ball to well and we didn’t cut to the ball as well,” Petrie said. “I thought we did better in the second half and didn’t capitalize on opportunities — they did.”
The game had playoff positioning implications for the Greyhounds in Class C South. They entered Wednesday’s game in fourth place, just ahead of North Yarmouth Academy, which was in fifth. Lisbon’s loss meant it had to wait for the result of the Traip-NYA game to see if it would host the Panthers or travel to North Yarmouth to open the postseason. Traip defeated NYA 3-1 on Wednesday, so the Greyhounds will host the Panthers next week.
Winthrop, already had the third seed locked up in Class C North going into the matchup against Lisbon. With a heavy senior roster, the Rambers still had plenty to play for.
“It was their senior game,” Merrill said. “I have seven seniors and they wanted to go out with a bang. Hopefully we have a lot field hockey left to play. It was really big to us because we wanted to keep moving forward. The girls know it’s always fun to beat Lisbon. It’s a rivalry that’s been developing, so the girls were intense anyway.”
Winthrop will host Mt. View in the regional quarterfinals.
The Ramblers (11-2-1) jumped out to an early 1-0 lead when Moriah Hajduk’s blast from the right side of the circle found the cage 7:39 into the contest.
With 4:08 remaining in the first half, Nora Conrad found Sarah Sparh to make it 2-0 off the team’s third corner of the game.
Lisbon (9-5) regrouped in the second half and controlled the play early on. The Greyhounds tripled their shot total from the first half with six in the second half.
Despite Libson’s improved effort after halftime, Winthrop picked up the lone goal of the half when Emily Molino put home a rebound off a corner play. The goal came 12:41 into the half.
“That has been consistent throughout the whole season,” Merrill said of spreading the scoring around. “We have had nine different girls score. If any day, a team is going to mark one of our girls or double team one of our girls, we have eight other girls who can easily step up and make those shots.”
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