LIVERMORE FALLS – Less than two weeks have expired in this fall sports season, and only one Mountain Valley Conference field hockey team remains unbeaten.

If Livermore Falls keeps playing as flawlessly as it did Wednesday night, that ‘0’ may not go for a while.

Call it a rivalry game, but don’t call it a showdown. The Andies dominated the second half at Griffin Field and blitzed the neighboring and previously undefeated Jay Tigers, 6-0.

The Andies (4-0) erupted for five goals in the second half. Three of those came in an 89-second span, with senior Marjorie DeBrosky scoring twice.

“We finished the first half with one goal. Was it one?” asked Debrosky, and she probably wasn’t the only person to lose track in the aftermath of a flurry that seemed to emerge from nowhere. “We knew we needed more than that to win the game.”

One was enough, ultimately. That came from Becca Leclerc on a rebound at the left goalmouth with 10:41 remaining in the first half. Rachel Ventrella redirected Helaina Lake’s shot off a penalty corner in the fifth minute after intermission to make it 2-0, and the rout was on.

“They do everything on the fly,” said Jay coach Jane DiPompo. “It hits the stick, and they’re off and running.”

Ventrella located DeBrosky with a textbook centering pass on the run at 14:03. DeBrosky deposited an almost identical feed from Whitney McDaniel into the back of the cage just 56 seconds later, and McDaniel got into the act by squirting a shot past Jay goaltender Brenda Allen from an odd angle at 15:30.

Chelsea Bilodeau completed the scoring at 21:02,with Ventrella picking up her second assist of the half.

“Wow! I don’t think that has happened to us for a while,” said Livermore Falls coach Julia Parker. “At halftime, we talked a lot about the way we started the Dirigo game on Monday night. We scored four goals in the first half of that game, one in the second half, and then one in the first half of this game. I said, ‘Let’s score four in the second half tonight,’ and they got me more than that.”

Jay (3-1-1) played well defensively before Livermore’s late explosion, but the Tigers struggled all night to counter the Andies’ advantage in team speed.

Extended forays in the Andies’ defensive zone were few and far between. Jay mustered only two shots on goal and one penalty corner.

“We knew we weren’t going to go undefeated,” DiPompo said. “It’s early in the season, so we’ll take it for what it’s worth. Now we’ve been on the other end. We play them again on our home field at the end of the regular season, and if we can get that one it will make us forget this one.”

Allen made 13 saves for the Tigers, while the Livermore Falls defense, led by senior goalie Samantha Whiting and sophomore sweeper Brittany Souther, registered its third straight shutout.

Souther broke up two potential Jay scoring bids in the first half by catching Jay forwards from behind.

“That was definitely an advantage,” DeBrosky said. “Everyone on our team is pretty fast.”

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