By Michael James LeClair
Susan Shaye; www.susanshaye.com
Unfortunately for the visiting Crusaders of Groton-Dunstable, lightning didn’t strike twice on Tuesday afternoon.
When the Crusaders and Nashoba Regional field hockey teams hit the Nashoba field Tuesday it was a situation that neither team was used to.
At the original meeting of these teams on Sept. 9, the two squads played 28:07 of the first half before the game was suspended due to lightning. When play was halted there was 1:53 remaining in the first half and the contest was scoreless.
Fast forward three weeks to Tuesday, Sept. 30, the two teams resumed the contest from where it was suspended.
Senior Marykate Magliozzi netted a pair of goals and classmate Tess Anderson added a goal and two assists as the Chieftains exploded for five second half goals and remained unbeaten on the season with a 5-0 victory at Chieftain Field.
Nashoba improves to 7-0-1 on the campaign with its only non-win coming on Sept. 18 when the Chieftains tied Algonquin Regional 2-2.
“This was my first time ever dealing with something like this. When the game was stopped the first time, I thought we’d have to start from the beginning,” said Nashoba head coach Jaime Mariani, whose squad has outscored the opposition by a combined 33-5 through eight games. “As for today, we didn’t know about the weather and if we’d be able to get it in so we knew the team would have to come out strong from the start and they certainly did that.”
Since tying the Tomahawks on Sept. 18, Nashoba has now won its last four games. “I thought we passed the ball really well and I thought everyone was working really well as a complete unit,” said Mariani. “From the backs to the mids to the forwards, they work really hard at pushing the ball up the field. All together, I thought today was a solid effort.”
Once play resumed, the initial two minutes that preceded halftime went scoreless. It wasn’t until the second half that the Chieftains offense came alive.
Less than three minutes into the second stanza, senior captain Sidney Lowe put the hosts on the scoreboard when she tipped home a blast from left side of the scoring circle to make it 1-0 with 27:17 left.
Magliozzi was next to find the back of the cage when she registered both her tallies back to back. Her first occurred with 25:47 left before striking again with 13:21 remaining to make it 3-0.
Senior Brianna Murphy made it 4-0 with a blast that found the back of the cage. Anderson earned the assist on Murphy’s goal.
After the game, both Magliozzi and Anderson were in agreement that they’ve never had a game like this before during their field hockey careers.
“This is the first time for, I think, everyone here. Something like this just never happens,” said Anderson. “We came in with a very intense mentality because we knew that there was a chance it could start raining so we wanted to try and grab the lead early.”
Magliozzi chocks up the team’s success to the great chemistry between the players. “Our team is very close; we’re like one big family. We work really well together,” said Magliozzi. “Our ability to be able to push the ball up the field with some strong passing and being able to get those shots on net is huge, it’s key to our success. That’s how we have success and win these types of games.”
The Chieftains added one more score for good measure when Anderson potted her first goal of the game with 2:14 showing on the scoreboard.
Nashoba goalkeeper Katie Crowley was stellar in the cage for the home team; stopping all three shots she faced to preserve the win. The Nashoba offense peppered Groton-Dunstable goalie Abby Vervaeke with 10 first half shots and another eight in the second half for a total of 18 shots.
The Chieftains returned to action on Wednesday afternoon looking to keep the winning streak alive, traveling to Dudley to visit Shepherd Hill Regional.