RUMFORD – Winthrop held off a second half surge from Mountain Valley on Wednesday afternoon.
Freshman goalie Madison Weymouth played a big part as she made four of her five saves in the second half in the Ramblers 2-1 victory over the Falcons.
Weymouth had two big saves coming off Falcons’ penalty corner attempts.
“My mentality is just to get it out (of the circle),” Weymouth said.
Her defense also played a role of keeping the ball out of the circle.
“They communicate really well amongst them, they tell me where they are and tell other players how to execute the ball,” Weymouth said. “They know how to do it.”
The first big save came with 20 minutes remaining in the game. The second came about ten minutes later.
The second one was a hard shot from the top of the circle, something she faces in practice.
“I do that a lot with her, I shoot hard shots at her, so she’s used to seeing those,” Winthrop coach Jessica Merrill said. “She has a great mentality. She comes out, she works hard, and she gets angry when they come into her circle. You can’t ask much more from a goalie. She has really come on strong for us.”
Weymouth’s counterpart, Nora Tag was solid for Mountain Valley, making three saves, all in the second half.
Despite not finding the back of the cage in the second half for the equalizer, Mountain Valley coach Melissa Forbes was pleased with the effort.
The Falcons outshot Winthrop 6-5 in the second half and had the penalty corner edge of 5-3 in the second half.
“My kids got better in the second half, I think they adapted and changed up the game a little bit,” Forbes said. “It was the first game we played all season where we were coming from behind. They are young.”
After a strong start by the Falcons, it was Winthrop which broke the deadlock as Brooklyn Gaghan found the back of the cage 6:49 into the game.
The Ramblers were glad to swing momentum.
“That was a huge confidence boost in the firs. Iit was (six) minutes into the game, that’s early for us,” Merrill said. “It definitely gave us confidence. We knew if we could get it in there, we have been really working our spots inside the circle.”
The Ramblers (7-0) went up 2-0 on its first penalty corner. Kerrigan Anuszewski inserted the ball and, after a mad scramble, Gia Francis put the ball past Tag. Hannah Duley had an assist on the goal.
Merrill, who usually calls the corner plays, has given the players those duties after a slow start to the season on corners,.
“We are really good at getting corners, but recently executing them has been a little rough,” Francis said. “We read the players and defense, then decide what we will do.”
With under five minutes remaining in the half, Rylee Sevigny put Mountain Valley (5-1) on the board off a penalty corner of its own.
It’s the only time that these teams will play each other in the regular season. It was also a little redemption for the Ramblers who lost to Mountain Valley last year.
“It’s huge. It boosted our confidence, especially since the last game of the season last year, we lost to them,” Francis said.
Forbes knows a loss at this stage of the season isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“Sometimes you have to take a loss early in the season and you learn from it,” Forbes said. “We have things we’ve got to work on like everyone does.”
Send questions/comments to the editors.
