AUBURN —  Boothbay entered Wednesday’s field hockey quarterfinal down one player, then lost another one in the first half, forcing both the Seahawks and St. Dominic Academy to play nine-on-nine.

It was an adjustment for both teams, but St. Dom’s found a way to acclimate, and an offensive explosion in the second half led the Saints to a 7-3 win in the Class C South matchup.

“It kind of shook us up a little bit,” St. Dom’s coach Abigail Bowie said. “Our high forward is kind of our bread and butter for us. It was definitely an adjustment for us but I think we adjusted really well. I think we figured it out because we’ve never played nine before.”

The first half was a closely-contested 30 minutes.

The first ten minutes was mostly all St. Dom’s possession in the Boothbay end. Just 2:40 into the game, Julianne Cook scored her first of three goals after she shifted from the left of the goal to the middle and slid it by Boothbay goalie Jaelyn Crocker, who made 10 saves on the day.

Boothbay didn’t possess the ball much to open the game, but the Seahawks did get an early breakaway just a minute after the Saints’ first goal, and after a couple passes, Chloe Arsenault scored her first of three goals to even the score.

With 22 minutes remaining in the half, Boothbay’s Mara Gentry took a shot to the hand and was out for the rest of the game, forcing both teams to play nine players each.

“We lost Mara, which was a significant loss,” Boothbay coach Donna Jordan said. “She’s a very important player for us. We couldn’t recover from that.”

Boothbay did not have any substitutes on the day as the Seahawks entered the season with just 12 players before one broke her leg and another was unable to make Wednesday’s game. That put the Seahawks at an endurance disadvantage from the start and forced its younger players to adjust on the fly.

For St. Dom’s, the switch to nine players was a totally new experience.

“It felt the same but just knowing we didn’t have the full team, it felt different and the same,” Isabella Pelletier said. “It would have been nice to have 10.”

“We lost our high forward, so we had to do a lot more recovering and we had to cut down to the goal and change up our corner play a bit,” Cook said.

The Saints adjusted pretty quickly and took a 2-1 lead with just-over 12 minutes left in the first half off a goal from Anna Cote.

Four minutes later, Cook added her second on a shot from the right side that slid into the far-side of the goal to go up 3-1.

Boothbay got back into the game for a little while when Arsenault slotted home a smooth goal to pull the Seahawks within a score.

Just-after the midway point of the second half, St. Dom’s Lorelei Bonney scored off a rebound to put her team up 4-2, followed a few minutes later by Cook’s third goal of her hat trick.

“Julianne always impresses me,” Bowie said. “She’s our hype girl, she gets the team going, she never falters with her enthusiasm and so if we are lacking in energy I always look to her to kind of bring it up.”

Pelletier added a goal of her own after spending most of the match setting up teammates, and with 8:20 remaining, St. Dom’s had a 6-2 lead.

“There was just a lot of passing, good communication and we shot whenever,” Pelletier said.

Arsenault wasn’t finished with her offensive assault, however, and added her third goal with six minutes remaining in the game on a long fastbreak down the left sideline before finishing past the goalie to make it 6-3.

“Chloe is outstanding,” Jordan said. “She has great stick work. Typically if you can get the ball in her hands then we are pretty confident it’s going in. We just have to stop them on the other side.”

The Saints continued to attack the Boothbay goal until the final buzzer and Mia-Angelina Leslie finished the scoring for the home team with a goal of her own that put St. Dom’s up 7-3.

Even with the goals allowed, Jordan was happy with the effort she got from Crocker in net.

“She has done a great job,” Jordan said. “She’s a sophomore, so we are excited to have her back for a couple more years.”

St. Dom’s is facing a potential regional semifinal against No. 2 Oak Hill (which hosts Lisbon on Thursday) on Saturday, so the energy needs to be high for the Saints.

“I think if we really come ready to play, and come super hyped-up and play St. Dom’s field hockey like we know how to, then it will help us to make it all the way,” Cook said.

 

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