AUBURN – The St. Dominic’s field hockey team refused to buckle under in the 2006 Western Maine Class C regional championship Wednesday afternoon.

Mary Lewis scored the winning goal midway through the second half as St. Dom’s remained unbeaten with a 1-0 shutout against Livermore Falls.

The Saints also beat Sacopee Valley 1-0 on Lewis goal in a semifinal game.

The regional final featured plenty of action. Each team had opportunities, but the respective defenses made their presence known.

“This was a great game,” Saints coach Brian Kay said. “It’s the way a championship should go, and you hate seeing either team lose. There were two good teams battling it out and the score 1-0. Our defense really stepped it up, but this as a total team effort.”

St. Dom’s (17-0), which had won its first-ever regional crown in 1993, will play in the state championship game at 10 a.m., Saturday at Fitzpatrick Stadium.

Saints fullbacks Chelsea St Onge-May and Annie Butts and sweeper Chelsea Fournier cleared numerous balls out of the zone. St. Dom’s defense has allowed four goals and have 13 shutouts.

“I was nervous and just wanted to clear the ball out,” Fournier said. “It feels great to finally win a regional championship, one of the best times of my life. Team knew we needed to come in here and work hard the entire game.”

One of the biggest plays occurred when St. Dom’s goalie Austyn Carolin stepped out and made a leg save on a Margret DeBrowsky rush with 50 seconds left. The Andies forward had split the defense, and it was a one-on-one event.

“We knew coming in that this would be a battle,” Lewis said. “We pumped ourselves up all day in school. The goal came off a penalty corner that we’d scored off of a lot this season. So when we got the ball down there, I just knew we could score.”

Butts had the ball disrupted by the Andies’ Helena Lake, but it bounced out to Katie Landry. She sent a crossing pass to Lewis, who drilled it past Andies goalie Sam Whiting (four saves).

Livermore Falls (16-2) controlled the ball a majority of the game, but used too many passes inside the circle without firing the ball at the cage. Rachel Ventrella, Becca Leclerc and Whitney McDaniel each had chances.

“I wish we had gotten to the ball more,” Livermore Falls coach Julia Parker said. “I really didn’t need to adjust because the same 11 girls have gotten us here, and we had a great season. St. Dom’s outplayed us today, but we had knocked them out of the playoffs the previous two years.”

St. Dom’s and Livermore Falls were nearly even in both shots and penalty corners.

Copy the Story Link