UMaine rebuffs Buckeyes Bears gain OT victory

ORONO – With only two returning starters, a general lack of experience in terms of players’ positions, and a front-loaded schedule featuring two Big 10 teams, University of Maine field hockey coach Terry Kix figured her team would have to endure some early growing pains this season.

After watching her Black Bears pull out a 2-1 overtime victory over nationally ranked Ohio State University following 70 minutes of regulation play, two 15-minute overtime periods and three sets of penalty strokes Sunday, she may have to reassess her position.

“Ohio State has tremendous tradition and anytime you beat anybody in the Big 10 in any sport … it’s big,” Kix said after Sunday afternoon’s season-opener. “This was a great game for a team with a lot of inexperience, but a lot of heart.”

“Maine came out and played hard. We’re not used to that style of hockey as far as them going in aggressively,” said OSU coach Anne Wilkinson. “It was a tough loss for us.”

Not until the game became almost three hours old and junior goalkeeper Jamie Morin deflected a point-blank shot from OSU’s Leticia Fragapane to clinch the win did UM’s players dare to start celebrating on the Morse Field turf.

“Oh, it’s big. We had a lot of overtime games last year and lost to them last year in overtime, so this is unreal for us,” said UM’s Shaunessy Saucier.

The junior forward from Old Town played a big part in the win as she scored on all three of her penalty-stroke shootout attempts, the last of which was the deciding score.

With the stroke goal total tied at 2-2 after the first two attempts by each team, Saucier made a slight fake to the left on her windup, caught goalkeeper Lindsay Williams leaning that way, and then delivered a low shot to the right corner to provide the necessary third score in the 10-shot (no more than five by each team) set.

“I kept asking coach which side she wanted us to go to,” said Saucier. “She likes to have Jo [teammate Joanna Fernandes] and I go right sometimes and the goalie was leaning that way [left], so I went left first and then right. She totally thought I was going left.”

Morin can relate. The junior from Winslow made a few wrong guesses herself as three of the last four shots got by her. If she could save the next one, however, all that would be forgotten and she would literally save the game for the Bears.

Fragapane – who set up OSU’s only goal with 7:11 left in the first half on a pass to Yesenia Luces, who deflected it past Morin – smacked a hard shot middle-right, but Morin deflected the ball harmlessly backward with her glove. It was one of at least three big saves she made with her glove in the game. The rest came via her stick, leg pads, body or hands.

“I like using my glove,” said Morin, who saved 11 of 14 shots in her second college start. “It’s bigger than the stick and I’m left-handed, but in field hockey that doesn’t really matter.”

Maine’s first goal came on a rebounded shot to the left side of the net by Meagan Connolly. It was set up by a pass from Winthrop’s Emily Dooling during a scramble in front after a Maine penalty corner.

Maine, which outshot the Buckeyes 16-14, also won a Saturday exhibition game against the University of Calgary 3-2.