TURNER – The play Lake Region used to put Leavitt into an early hole in Tuesday’s Western Class B field hockey quarterfinal wasn’t playoff-tested, but the Lakers were.

That is all they needed to pull off a stunning upset.

Lauren D’Ascanio scored on ninth-seeded Lake Region’s first penalty corner of the game and the Laker defense shut down Leavitt’s penalty corners to defeat the top-seeded Hornets, 2-1.

“We actually just made this penalty corner (Monday) in practice,” D’Ascanio said. “We call it ‘X to the Y’ because we have a play called ‘X’ and this is the alternative to it if that one doesn’t work.”

On the play, the Lakers fake a double stick stop. The second player, in this case D’Ascanio, shoots rather than executing the stick stop. The Laker senior beat Leavitt goalie Kristen Capen with 16:21 left in the first half.

“I just leave them to practice their penalty corners until they feel comfortable,” Lakers coach Dagny Leland said. “They take ownership in it.”

Leavitt (12-2-1) owned a 16-5 advantage in penalty corners, including 10-3 in the first half. But Carolynne Skarbinski added what proved to be the game-winning goal on the Lakers’ final penalty corner of the first half with 2:04 remaining.

“We didn’t play our best game, and when you get yourself into a two-goal hole, it’s hard to come back from that,” Leavitt coach Wanda Ward-MacLean said. “We had some opportunities and they stopped a bunch. It seemed like every time we had momentum, a whistle blew or they had a big hit.”

Leavitt outshot Lake Region, 16-8, but a number of those shots went wide of the cage. Lake Region goalie Rachel Curtis (seven saves) also had some big stops, denying Courtney Erskine, the Hornets’ top scorer, on a couple of hard hits.

“Rachel has been incredible,” Leland said. “She didn’t play last year. It was her turn to step it up.”

The Lakers (8-7-1) didn’t lose momentum in the second half despite a devastating injury to senior co-captain Angie Adams, who was hit in the kneecap with a stick nine-and-a-half minutes in. The game was delayed about 25 minutes until an ambulance arrived to transport Adams to the hospital.

“Any time we come to Leavitt, it’s like bad karma, but I think we broke that,” Leland said. “We’re a close-knit family and they were just as upset as Angie, but Angie just said, ‘Tell them to play hard and never give up.'”

Sarah Durgin finally got the Hornets on the board with 11:46 left in the game on a screamer past Curtis’ kick save attempt with her left leg.

That was all of the offensive output the Hornets, who beat the Lakers, 7-0 in a preseason scrimmage, could muster.

“We came off a great win (2-0 in the prelims) with Cape Elizabeth on their turf,” said Leland. “We’re just starting to peak at the right time. Our motto at the start of the playoffs was that we’re a new team. They’re trusting each other. They’re helping each other. They’re passing quicker. They’re going faster. They’re moving.”