JAY — It was those finishing touches in front of the Lisbon net that made Spruce Mountain field hockey coach Katie Trask feel like her Phoenix are turning the corner this season.

The Phoenix (4-4) punched in three fast-and-furious goals and gave their coach hope in the first half, rolling to a 3-0 victory over the Greyhounds (1-7) in a Class C field hockey game on a picture-perfect autumn afternoon on Wednesday.

“Gosh, finally I feel like they are playing this game, but we finally learned how to finish,” Trask said. “We had a hard, tough practice yesterday, really working inside the circle and it paid off today.

“I am really proud of them. They worked hard. They finally finished and that’s what we needed to do. We’ve been playing that way for three games, where if we just finished, it would have been a different story, I think. Super impressive today for sure.

“Lisbon is a great team. They always come ready to play. Same thing like us, not finishing. I am hoping this is a game-changer for us. We were hoping to come out of our slump.”

Auriana Armandi put the Phoenix on the scoreboard at 22:04 in the first half. She used an Emily Castonguay assist and popped the ball in to hand-deliver Spruce a 1-0 lead.

A little over five minutes later, Spruce introduced its sister act — Emily and Ryleigh Castonguay — who teamed up for an afternoon performance to produce the Phoenix’s second goal at 17:09. Emily was credited with the goal and Ryleigh provided the feed to make it happen.

Less than two minutes lapsed when the Phoenix found another opening to score their third goal.

Hanni Johnson used a pass from Armandi, who was credited with the assist, and scored at 15:24 to put Spruce Mountain on top, 3-0.

“I think Ashley Campbell in the backfield (helped). She had a lot of great stops at crucial times,” Trask said. “Ella Plourde I have in the back and I can bring her up front. That made a huge difference there, too.’’

The second half featured a more determined Greyhounds, who prevented Spruce from scoring, but Lisbon couldn’t come up with a goal, either.

“I thought our effort was better today. I thought we didn’t back down,” Lisbon coach Julie Petrie said. “We definitely had opportunities. We just didn’t capitalize, which was a bummer. 

“But I am not displeased how we played. We just didn’t finish. I thought we worked fairly well as a team. I was happy we held them scoreless in the second half.”

Becky Budesheim made seven saves in goal for the Greyhounds. Melissa Bamford stopped three shots for Spruce Mountain.

 

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