West Canaan
No. 1 Mascoma (14-1), which defeated Berlin, 3-0, on Friday afternoon, is a year removed from an improbable state championship run that included knocking off three higher-seeded opponents as a No. 10, before ultimately losing in the finals to Newfound.
“The girls have been really good about holding their composure the whole season,” said Jenn Hammond, the Royals’ fifth-year coach. “So the way we’ve looked at is, ‘Yup, now the season starts over, everybody’s zero-zero, everybody’s at the exact same level.’
“Anything — as we know from coming in being an underdog last year — can happen.”
Hammond, whose squad will face No. 5 Lebanon in Tuesday’s semifinals at Bill Ball Stadium in Exeter, expressed a sense of relief after the hosts came out slower than she had hoped for.
“They definitely picked it up once they scored that (first) goal,” she said. “And I think (they) had a little bit more confidence and, ‘Yeah, we deserve to be here,’ type of thing. They definitely fed off that energy and just continued moving forward.”
Bella Kondi, who plays center defense for the Royals, agreed that some degree of pressure had been relieved.
“At school, everyone was like, ‘You guys were undefeated in your division, you’re gonna kick some butt, you’re gonna go all the way, right?’ ” Kondi said. “It just feels like everything just got lifted off of us.”
Kondi, along with defensive flanks Sophia Guciewicz and Paige Jette, helped goalkeeper Abby Duhaime, blank the No. 9 Mountaineers (8-7-1).
Duhaime needed to make only one save to help the hosts to their 10th shutout of the season. Overall, Mascoma has scored 58 goals and surrendered just nine. Four of those nine were against Division II Hanover — the only team to beat the Royals thus far. On Friday, both teams were awarded six penalty corners and Mascoma owned a 7-1 advantage in shots.
Amelia Wilson put Mascoma on the board with 13:02 remaining in the first half when she drove right from the top of the circle, dispatched multiple defenders and found teammate MacKenzie Labrie, who finished the play at the opposite-side goal line.
Wilson struck again in the second half’s third minute by driving, creating for herself and scoring on Mountaineer goalie Olivia Boucher.
Morgan Prentiss capped the scoring by converting a Boucher deflection with 8:43 remaining in the game. The insurance goal was set up by Natalie Poitras’ long carry and shot.
Tuesday’s semifinal against the new-to-Division III Raiders (11-3-2) will be the rematch of a game Mascoma won, 3-1, on Sept. 17 in Lebanon. The first matchup was on natural grass; the second will be on artificial turf.
“When you go to turf, it’s a whole new ball game,” Hammond said. “It’s going to be who can move the ball faster, who can get to the open spots and who gets it in the net the quickest.”
Wilson, who has several friends who play for Lebanon, is looking forward to the Route 4 rivalry the D-III semifinals represent.
“Lebanon is a team that we’ve always kind of seen, like if you go to a camp or something,” Wilson said. “You know a lot of Leb kids because we’re so close to them, but since they’ve never been in our division, we’ve never actually played them, so it’s really different to actually be facing them.”