Waterville edges Belfast on 13th corner Panthers capture first regional crown

BELFAST – At some point, coach Amie Dubois figured she’d give her Waterville field hockey team free reign to call their own penalty corners.

After six tries in the post-overtime session of Wednesday afternoon’s Eastern Maine Class B final, Dubois’ players made the right call.

“I could see they were talking amongst themselves and once the corner got going I could tell what they were going to do,” Dubois said. “But it was really in their hands at that point.”

On the 13th penalty corner of the extra session, Jenna Jolicoeur put in a pass from Danielle Fossa, and then the No. 4 Panthers held off the No. 3 Lions in the following corner for a 1-0 triumph and a spot in the Class B state championship game for the first time and any state game since 1979.

Waterville was in Class A that year and won the title 3-1 over Westbrook.

The Panthers’ win means there will be a new state champion for the first time since 2003 as Belfast (9-7-1) was the three-time defending titleholder.

A 3-0 win in the regular season helped Waterville (12-5) with its confidence.

“I think we were confident enough but we had to work really hard,” said forward-midfielder Chanelle Lansley, a senior captain. “… This is amazing and just so exciting. We knew exactly what we had to do. We knew we came here to win.”

Waterville will face the winner of Wednesday’s Western Maine final between No. 1 Maranacook of Readfield and No. 3 Leavitt of Turner at 2 p.m. Saturday at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland.

As the sun set quickly after 60 minutes of regulation and 16 minutes of 7-on-7 play, the teams ran off 12 penalty corners before Jolicoeur and the Panthers finally put one in.

Chanelle Lansley, who inserted the ball from the left side of the cage, pushed it up to Jessica Defelice. The ball rolled under Defelice’s stick, but Brittany Locke was backing up the play and settled the ball, sending a diagonal pass to Fossa.

Fossa sent it across to Jolicoeur at the right post.

“I just saw the ball so I dove and it went in,” said Jolicoeur, a sophomore forward.

Just as key as Jolicoeur being in position was Locke re-inserting the ball.

“Brittany’s there in case we have a bad bounce and she knows what the calls are,” Dubois. “She does what Jess is supposed to do. … Jenna was right on pads to get to the ball.”

Belfast coach Allen Holmes called a timeout before his team’s last chance, but the Lions were unable to get a good chance at an equalizer, even when they had a free hit during the corner.

Belfast outshot Waterville 7-5 but neither team was able to get much going early. The Lions had four corners – all of which came in the same stretch early in the second half – to two for the Panthers.

The Lions had a good look at a shot in the first overtime when Briana Curry crossed a pass to Sami Bark, but Bark was called for a ball off her foot just a split second before her shot went wide of the cage.

“We had a couple of chances,” Holmes said. “[Goaltending] was the difference today. Waterville’s goalie was up to the task. We had her out of position a few times and we weren’t able to pull the trigger.”

Belfast’s Leeann Donovan made five saves, while Waterville’s Kristin Tormollan stopped seven shots.

It was the second straight penalty-corner playoff game for Belfast, which did not allow a goal in field play in the last two games.

“It says we have good defense and we’ve improved all season long,” said Holmes, who is considering whether he’ll return for his 36th season. “… This team beat us 3-0 [and] we take them to penalty corners. I’d call that a pretty good improvement.”