ORONO, Maine — The fifth-seeded Edward Little High School field hockey team had mustered just five shot attempts to Brewer’s 20 through the first three quarters of their Class A North quarterfinal at the University of Maine’s field hockey complex on Wednesday night and was trailing 2-0.
But talented senior forward Leah Thibodeau scored a goal and assisted on two others as the Red Eddies from Auburn scored off three penalty corners in the last 10:27 to pull out a dramatic 3-2 victory over the Witches.
Edward Little, now 9-6, will travel to take on top seed Skowhegan in Saturday’s semifinals. This is EL’s first winning season since 2016.
The Witches wound up 10-4-1 and concluded their first winning season since 2014.
Mackenzie Joler’s goal with 10:27 remaining started the comeback as she jammed the ball over the goal line after Thibodeau’s shot from the top of the circle hit the post to the right of Brewer goalie Maci Morneau.
“All we needed was that first goal and everything went from there,” said Thibodeau. “We got a lot of energy off that and we were all positive.”
Just 1:51 later, Thibodeau tied it with a low blast from the top of the circle past the left leg of Morneau.
“I was looking to have that straight shot and I knew my teammates would be crashing the cage for me,” said Thibodeau.
Moon’s game-winner came to her off Thibodeau’s stick as she was positioned in the left side of the circle.
“I one-touched it and it went high and it just got hit by a stick and went right in,” said Moon.
Senior Adrianna Couture was the inserter on all three corners.
“We practice penalty corners a lot,” said Thibodeau. “We talked before the fourth quarter about having grit. We have shown a lot of grit and we powered through the fourth quarter.
“This is very new for EL. We haven’t won a first-round game in a long time. This was great,” she added.
Moon said the win meant a lot to her.
“I’m personally a senior and I didn’t want this game to be my last game. I turned on that button and I just went. I gave it my all and I was ready to win this game no matter what,” she said.
Brewer had dominated the game through three periods and took a well-deserved lead on goals by standouts Allie Flagg and Jordin Williams in the first half.
Williams set up Flagg’s goal with a terrific rush down the middle, stickhandling around a few Eddies before pushing the ball ahead to Flagg, who wheeled around and swept the puck past Kasey Smith.
Later in the half, Williams unleashed a blast that cleanly beat Smith to extend the lead.
Smith made a number of terrific saves to keep the Eddies within striking distance. She finished with nine saves.
Williams and Flagg were constant threats with their exceptional stick skills and speed and Smith made a great left pad stop off a powerful Williams shot early in the fourth quarter that prevented the Eddies from falling behind 3-0.
Thibodeau was EL’s primary threat and had a number of threatening runs throughout the contest.
Morneau made three saves for the Witches, who had beaten EL 3-1 during the regular season..
