Morning Sentinel
Indians
roll to
regional
final
By MATT DiFILIPPO
Staff Writer
Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel 10/21/2007

SKOWHEGAN -- Whether the goals come early, late or both, the Skowhegan field hockey team has faith they will come at some point. They've now come 68 times this season in 16 games.

On Saturday afternoon against Oxford Hills, the Indians struck for two goals before the midpoint of the first half, then knocked in two more goals after the intermission for a 4-0 victory in an Eastern A semifinal.

"We've had a few games where we've scored late, so I was pretty confident that we'd be able to score and pull it out," said Skowhegan senior Caitlyn Lancaster, who had a goal in each half.

"We weren't really worried about scoring, mostly about defense and keeping it zero against."

By "keeping it zero against" the Indians posted their 14th shutout in 16 games, and they blanked one of the two teams to score on them during the regular season. Skowhegan (15-1), which has won the last six Class A state titles, will play the winner of Monday's Cony-Gardiner game in Wednesday's regional final.

Oxford Hills (10-5-1) has a standout goalie in junior Aleksys Pike, and she had an amazing game last year in the playoffs against Skowhegan. This year, although Pike dove around and made 14 saves, the Indians got to her early when Sam Gifford scored 4 minutes, 10 seconds into the half.

Skowhegan made it 2-0 with 16:58 left in the half. Pike made a save from the seat of her pants and kept shuffling backward so she wouldn't be called for trapping the ball and give Skowhegan a penalty stroke. But when the Indians got the ball free, Lancaster drilled in a straight-on blast.

"They were quicker and faster to the ball," Oxford Hills coach Cindy Goddard said. "We've accomplished a lot, (but) they looked a little more skilled than we did today."

Erin Sevey added the capper with 14:35 left. Moving left to right across the middle of the circle, Sevey sent in a shot for the final 4-0 score.

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