GUILFORD – The Dexter field hockey team should have been walking around Piscataquis High field with a swagger on Tuesday. They had their corner unit repeatedly shut down by Piscataquis and still the Tigers shut out the Pirates of Guilford 3-0 as they improved to 10-0.

Yet the defending Class C state champions don’t want to be braggarts, they don’t even want to talk about their win streak, their potent front line or their expectations this season to win another title. It’s as if they’re afraid to jinx themselves. But the truth is Dexter’s humility has more to do with a lesson learned.

“For a couple of weeks we were playing sloppy. We decided we were starting new. We’re not talking about [the state title],” said senior forward Sarah Clukey, one of the Tigers top scorers with 15 goals and five assists. “We got together, the players then the coaches and decided that’s best, not to talk about it.”

The Tigers looked like they had no need to fear Tuesday, even as they faced a tough Pirates goalkeeper in Kalli Pulkkinen, who stopped 15 of 18 shots. Dexter scored on just one of its 15 corners, but the Tigers found other ways to beat Pulkkinen, whose Pirates are now 8-3-1.

With 7 minutes, 36 seconds left in the first, Clukey took a Kristy Veazie assist in the midst of a scramble in the circle and pushed it passed Pulkkinen from the left post. Clukey’s methods were so stealth, the Pirates bench cheered when play stopped thinking she had been stopped. And when the goal went up on the scoreboard, Pulkkinen threw up her arms in disbelief.

“They were fluky goals,” Pulkkinen said. “I didn’t always see them [with the players crowding the goal]. That’s not anyone’s fault. On those, you have a 50-50 chance.”

In the second period, Clukey scored again in the same fashion, but this time off a Jess Ellis assist following a Dexter corner. Then Kristin Gilbert made it 3-0, scoring off a pass from Veazie, who has racked up 15 assists to go with her 11 goals. Angie Westover stopped the two Pirates shots she faced to preserve the shutout.

However, other than opening the game with their chant, “1-2-3 defending,” that’s the only reference to repeating the Tigers say they’ll allow themselves.

“We were excited about winning another state title. But it put too much pressure on us,” said Dexter coach Margaret Veazie, Kristy’s mother. “I was feeling pressure. The team was feeling pressure. We decided to start anew. We’re leaving last year in the past.”

JV: Dexter 1-0