YARMOUTH — Unbeaten North Yarmouth Academy looked for the open spaces throughout Wednesday’s Western Class C field hockey semifinal against No. 5 Jay. 

As the game unfolded and the Tigers tired, the Panthers found more and more open turf and, eventually, a clear path to the regional final.

Four different Panthers scored and NYA’s forwards dominated the Lewis Field turf while blanking Jay, 4-0.

NYA (16-0) will face second-seeded and unbeaten Telstar in search of its second straight Western C title. Jay, which was eliminated by NYA the two previous years, including 1-0 in last year’s regional final, finishes its season at 11-5.

Kylie Dalbec, Jaime Rogers, Frances Leslie and Lianna Hachborn all scored and Katie Page added two assists for the Panthers, who broke the game open with three goals in the second half.

“I think the other team ran out of breath a little bit,” NYA coach
Julia Sterling said. “I think we picked up on that and I think we
started figuring out that we could get to the ball before they could.”

“We were trying to get the ball to open spaces,” Rogers said. “Our players know to run
onto it. That’s what we’ve been practicing all season.”

Jay had hoped to take advantage of Lewis Field’s turf surface with ball movement and a quick short game. But NYA’s forwards, led by Dalbec, Hachborn, Katherine Millett and Ashley Salerno, were able to play keep-away better and sustain the pressure on Jay goalie Ashley Quirrion (19 saves). 

“It’s a different game (on turf),” Jay coach Jane DiPompo said. “We like to pass and we like short passes. This field accents that, so is it different? Yeah, but we still like it.”

“They had three or four players on the ball, so they were fast enough
to be there,” Sterling said. “They put up a wall, so we had to get rid
of it. We had a little bit of passing, but we really had to get the
ball to open space in order to get there first.”

NYA outshot Jay, 23-3, keeping the pressure off backup goalie Mariah Farrell, who was playing in goal for regular starter Hayley Bright (mono). The Tigers didn’t get a shot on goal in the first half. Neither did the Panthers for the first 10 minutes. Then Dalbec jammed one inside the left post after a flurry in front of the cage 10:39 into the half. The Panthers maintained the one-goal edge to intermission.

“I felt great. I said, ‘We’re still in this,'” DiPompo said. “I told
these girls at the beginning of the year that we were going to be in
every game that we play. Whether we pull it out, it will be a plus. It
came down to the semifinals, so I’m happy.” 

Rogers made it 2-0 11:35 into the second half with a laser from near the top of the circle.

“Honestly, I wasn’t aiming to get it in the goal. I was aiming to get
it towards Lianna or Kylie or one of the other forwards because I
honestly didn’t think it would go in from there,” Rogers said.  

“She had probably the best game of her entire career,” Sterling said of Rogers.

Leslie made it 3-0 near the midway point. Jay’s best chance to score came a little over a minute later, when Shayna Meserve collected a pass in front of the right post and quickly spun around to try to beat Farrell, but the ball rolled wide.

The Panthers will be on the turf again Saturday, though not their home turf, when they face Telstar. The game will be held on another artificial playing surface in Scarborough.

“They are going to be really tough,” Sterling said of Telstar. “If we play as well as we did in the second half today, I think that we will conquer.”