Sunapee
Central to the Lakers’ spooky-good offense is senior striker Maddie Austin, who scored three goals to lead top-seeded Sunapee over No. 9 Gorham, 4-0, on Tuesday in its NHIAA Division IV quarterfinal match at Alexander Field.
Hannah Cooney scored the insurance goal late in the second half. The Lakers, the defending state champs, advanced to the D-IV semifinals for the eighth consecutive season.
“I think there’s a lot more soccer in there than we put out there today,” said Sunapee head coach Myles Cooney, sticking to a patented approach of never being satisfied that has helped the Lakers win three state titles in the last five years. “You hate to sound negative when you win four to nothing, but we’ve had a long layoff here.
“We’ve sat around for 11 days; just finding that speed that we had in this game, it just wasn’t there today. Obviously, the kids were trying to connect passes. It wasn’t really happening at pace or with the intensity that we’re looking forward. There’s other gears in there. We know that. We’re just trying to find it.”
Sunapee (15-2) will take on No. 4 Woodsville (16-3), a team it has not faced this season, in the D-IV semifinals on Thursday at Laconia High.
Woodsville is trying to reach its first final since 2014 and win its first title since 1994.
Austin got Sunapee on the board in the 16th minute with a rocket shot from outside the box after the Lakers senior made a move around a defender; the ball landed just inside the left goal post. She scored again 10 minutes later from a similar spot, giving Sunapee a 2-0 lead at halftime.
“Anyone with that kind of laser has the green light to shoot,” Cooney said. “From my point of view, we need all three kids (including strikers Hannah Cooney and Abby Pollari) being a threat to score. When that happens, Maddie is the ultimate threat to score.”
Austin completed her hat trick 17 minutes into the second half. All of her goals were unassisted. It was her eighth hat trick and her 11th multi-goal game of the season. She entered the semifinals with 41 goals and nine assists to her name.
“When I first came on this team, I didn’t really play a pivotal role because I was so young,” Austin said. “But as I’ve come up through the years, I’ve been on this team longer than most people, so I know what’s expected of me. I don’t think my role is to be the top player, just to be another piece to the puzzle and work hard.”
Hannah Cooney’s goal, her 18th of the year, was a corner kick she delivered to Gorham sophomore goalkeeper Karly Cordwell that deflected into the net. Cordwell finished with 19 saves on 32 Sunapee shots, 23 of which were on goal. Suzanne Rickard made one save for Sunapee’s ninth shutout of the year.
The win came in Sunapee’s first game since Oct. 20, a layoff that left Cooney and his Sunapee coaching staff trying to get the Lakers’ confidence back after suffering back-to-back losses to Newmarket and Epping late in the regular season. The veteran Lakers coach said there is still work to do, despite the dominant regular-season record, ahead of Thursday’s semifinal.
“Those two losses were tough. I think they shook our confidence a little bit,” Cooney said. “But they’ve got to know when you get to the semifinal and you play the top two teams in your division, they’re going to be tough and sometimes you’re going to be disappointed. We went on a long stretch there of not losing. … That’s one of the things we had to learn, how to lose and get better.”
The game between Sunapee and Woodsville is scheduled to start at 6 p.m., after the D-IV semifinal between No. 2 Newmarket and No. 6 Epping at 4 p.m. The D-IV final will take place at noon Sunday at Laconia High.
Notes: Gorham’s Cordwell was busy all afternoon. She also made two first-half saves with her face on breakaways by Austin and Pollari. … The game ball was swapped midway through the first half for one with more air pressure after several players noted that the ball seemed flat. Sunapee athletic director Tom Frederick fetched a new ball and threw it onto the field. He was later on the receiving end of some jokes in reference to New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and “Deflategate” from some in attendance.
Josh Weinreb can be reached at jweinreb@vnews.com or 603-727-3306.