Raiders advance to state final

WINSLOW – Wednesday afternoon’s Eastern Maine Class B field hockey final likely won’t be used as an instructional guide to penalty corner execution, but Winslow fans won’t be quibbling about it.

Then again, it’s hard to complain when your team has just won a sixth straight regional title, which is just what the Black Raiders did courtesy of a 2-1 overtime victory over Mount View of Thorndike that stretched into the second set of penalty corners.

“When it got to penalty corners today, I didn’t feel too good,” said Raiders coach Lori Loftus. “You never know with our corners. We couldn’t even connect today in warm-ups.”

They did finally manage to connect when it mattered most, however, as Laura Pomerleau took the opening pass to start the 10th possession overall, and the fourth in the second set of penalty corners and drove hard toward the goal from the center of the field.

Pomerleau waited as two defenseman came out on her, dished a perfect pass off to the left post, where Beth LaFountain was stationed, and LaFountain swiped a shot in. Mount View’s Jenna Drummond stopped the shot, but it deflected back out to lone Winslow forward Mary Lambert, who blasted it back in on a scramble in front of the net for her second goal of the game.

“We had a set corner, but all week we’ve been practicing on how to get the ball coming back out on the rebounds and finally it paid off,” said Pomerleau. “That was the result of our practice all week right there.”

It was the latest in a series of of dramatic Winslow victories.

“Coach is always telling us we make her bite her nails,” said Lambert, the team’s lone senior. “We don’t like to play like that, but that seems to be the way it always turns out.”

The 15-1-1 defending state champs meet Greely of Cumberland Center Saturday at the USM campus in Gorham.

Lambert started Winslow’s comeback by tying the game up with 9:25 left in regulation after handling a beautiful pass from Mallory Finley on the run as Finley was sprinting down the right sideline, bringing the ball up the middle, and blasting a shot in from about 10 yards out.

“I think Winslow just knows what it takes to get through these games and it gets them angry when someone scores on them,” said Mount View coach Lisa Gibbs. “They obviously don’t like to lose.”

The lone goal by the 10-6-1 Mustangs came with 20:36 left in the second half. Amy Miles scored on a 10-footer in front of the goal off a pass from near the right post by Lindsey Hunter.

The Black Raiders outshot the Mustangs 26-12 as Drummond finished with 24 saves. Winslow’s Cierra Byrne made 10 saves.