Speed and depth are a dangerous combination, especially in field hockey. Spruce Mountain has plenty of both, and is lighting up scoreboards in the MVC.

Ever since their 1-1 tie with fellow unbeaten Lisbon, the thump of ball striking the wooden base of the cage has been common at Spruce Mountain games. In six games, all victories, the Phoenix have scored 36 goals.

What’s most encouraging to the Phoenix isn’t the sheer volume of goals, but the fact that they are coming off so many different sticks.

“We’re fortunate to have 10 seniors on the team, eight starters, that are good leaders out there,” Spruce Mountain co-coach Julia Parker said. “We have spread out our scoring quite a bit. It’s been different girls contributing. We’ve had nine girls that have been scoring more consistently for us, three or four of them that are getting higher and higher, but they all like to put them in there.”

Forwards Kayla Meserve, LaDesta Tracy and Nicole Hamblin have been the most prolific scorers. But forward Randy Duguay, midfielder Brooke Cushing and defender Victoria Ouellette have been regular contributors. The Phoenix want to get as many people involved as possible.

“When they get their passing game together, that’s when it really starts to come. When we start struggling, we tell them to start passing and start communicating. That’s when we’ll put more goals in there,” Parker said.

The defense has held up its end of the bargain, too, yielding just six goals in seven games. Kasey Richards has two shutouts in goal, and the defense, led by Ouellette, Emily Taylor and Katelyn Gervais hasn’t allowed more than two goals in any game.

Ramblers feel right at home

Ten players took their swings from the driving range at Springbrook Golf Course on a sweltering, recent afternoon while Winthrop golf coach Lonney Steeves looked on, offering encouragement.

“Soon they’ll be old enough to know how to take advantage of it. Right now I think the goal for a lot of them is to see how many balls they can hit into the trees,” Steeves quipped, pointing out the forest that sits about 250 yards on a straight line from the tee.

On a more serious note, the location and the level of participation help to explain why the Ramblers are 7-0 and sitting atop the MVC.

In this day of increasing costs and declining enrollment almost everywhere, many local golf teams have difficulty fielding a full complement of four scoring players, never mind staging real, in-house competition for those spots.

Winthrop can credit its home course for some of its program’s appeal. It isn’t hard to understand why the Ramblers drive nine miles and cross two town lines to practice and play home meets in Leeds, at the sprawling layout operated by Joe and Jeannine Golden.

“Every day, every kid gets to hit a bag of balls, putt on a great practice green and play nine holes,” Steeves said. “And we don’t pay for any of it. The Goldens have been amazing to us.”

The Ramblers established themselves as the team to beat Friday with a 5-2 win over defending champion St. Dom’s at Fox Ridge. Taylor Morang, Adam Hachey and Anthony Owens won matches at the top three rungs of the ladder for Winthrop.

Bucks have the drive

With the East/West Conference golf championship looming this week, the power in the Class D league appears to reside in Buckfield.

In the final league tune-up this past week at Lakewood Golf Course in Madison, Buckfield’s quartet stared down defending champion Forest Hills and won by a whopping 33 shots.

Jonah Williams was low medalist on the day with a 44, but an equal key to the Bucks’ victory was the return of Owen Bennett, who carded a 46. Hannah Gallant chipped in a 47 and Tyler Vallee 55 to give the Bucks a team total of 192, by far the lowest cumulative score in the EWC this season.

EWC golfers return to Lakewood this Wednesday at 9 a.m. for the conference championship. If Buckfield can repeat its performance from a week ago, the Bucks will qualify for the state schoolboy team championship at Natanis in Vassalboro on Oct. 12.

Local cross country stars shine

Some of the top cross country runners in the state met for the first time in regular season meets last week.

Josh Horne and Aaron Willingham of Mt. Blue finished 1-2 at Leavitt’s homecoming meet on Friday. Horne broke the tape at 16:52.51, nearly 11 seconds ahead of his teammate. But Lewiston was able to defeate the Cougars, 30-45, after Mohamed Awil, Isaiah Harris, Faran Abdillahi, Mohamed Mohamed and Osman Mohamed finsihed in the 3,4, 5, 8 and 10 spots, respectively.

Lewiston’s Farhiyo Aden and Faith Shaw finished second and third, respectively to lead the Lewiston girls to first place. The Blue Devils tied with Maranacook with 47 points, but won the tiebreaker based on their sixth runner finishing ahead of the Black Bears’ sixth. Maranacook’s Hannah Depres won with a time of 22:03. 

Mt Blue, led by Maggie Hickey (fourth) and Sarah Wade (fifth) finished third among six teams. Julia Labbe was the top Leavitt runner, finishing sixth.

In the Mountain Valley Conference, Telstar’s Josef Holt-Andrews set a new course record at Carrabec, eclipsing former Madison star Matt McClintock’s mark by 17 seconds with a time of 15:21. Ben Allen, who finished second (17:30) led the Winthrop boys to victory over Dirigo, Madison and Carrabec. William Vance, Mathias Deming and Isaac Johnson also finished in the top eight for the Ramblers. Olivia Demchak of Madison won the girls’ race in 22:05, eight seconds ahead of teammate Bronte Elias. Winthrop’s Molly Kieltyka was the top local finisher, 25 seconds off the pace.

All of the conference’s top runners are scheduled to compete in the MVC’s annual mid-season conference meet at the University of Maine at Augusta on Wednesday.

Worth the wait

The make-up date has been set for an eagerly anticipated MVC field hockey clash. Lisbon will travel to Winthrop at 4 p.m. Thursday in a rematch of the 2012 Class C state championship game, won by the Greyhounds.

Wet conditions forced the game to be postponed Saturday, Sept. 14, even with the sun shining brightly. Two days of torrential rain took their toll on the field behind Winthrop High School.

“There was standing water in front of both goals,” Winthrop athletic director Chris Moreau said. “Even with a few hours to dry, I didn’t want to put two great teams out there in conditions like that.”

An extra week-and-a-half hasn’t done anything to diminish the significance of the game. Lisbon still sits atop Western Class C with a 5-0-1 mark, the only speed bump an opening-day tie against Class B power Spruce Mountain. Winthrop, which is assigned to Eastern Maine for playoff purposes, is 5-1 after losing to Spruce on Friday.

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