Frontier Regional School began its WMass Division II title defense Tuesday afternoon and looked plenty ready to defend its crown.
Four players scored once and the Red Hawks peppered the Southwick-Tolland Regional High School goal with 27 shots during a 4-0 victory in independent field hockey action in South Deerfield.
The Red Hawks are dealing with several key losses coming into the season that may leave the team susceptible to getting knocked off, but it didn’t happen Tuesday, when they looked plenty tough in the opener against the Rams.
Frontier got on the board 4 minutes, 38 seconds into the game when Camille Alli set up Ashley Borkowski, who buried the lone goal of the first half. The Hawks broke things open with three goals in the second half. Hannah Roche scored with 16 minutes left on an assist from Olivia Vecellio, and McKenzie Patterson got her first of the season less than three minutes later on an assist from Borkowski. Alli then completed the scoring with 7:16 left on a helper from Patterson.
“I’m pleased with our first game,” Frontier coach Missy Mahar said. “I think, collectively, we were forming our attacks in the backfield, which we need to do in order to be successful. It was a good start but we have things to clean up before our game Friday against Greenfield.”
Skyla Burniske and Darian Meyers combined in net and Meyers made the only save to earn the tandem shutout. Sarah Power made 23 saves in the Southwick net.
Frontier hosts Greenfield High School Friday afternoon in a rematch of last year’s WMass Division II title game, and a possible preview of this year’s championship tilt.
Turners 3, Athol 0— Cassidhe Wozniak picked up right where she left off last season.
The Turners Falls High School sophomore netted three goals Tuesday afternoon and the Indians opened the season with a 3-0 West Division victory over Athol High School at the Bourdeau Fields Complex in Turners Falls.
Wozniak has scored 28 goals over the first two years of her varsity career and she wasted little time in registering her first of the season, finishing off a pass from Hattie Harvey 2:16 into the game to put the Indians ahead for good.
Wozniak then scored with just over eight minutes left in the first half, assisted by Aly Murphy, and finished off her hat trick late in the second half with an unassisted goal.
Turners Falls outshot the Red Raiders, 39-0. Hudson Carlson stopped 36 shots for Athol, which was playing one short with just 10 players.
Maddie Currier did not make a save in the shutout.
Holyoke 3, FC Tech 1 — Cassidy Lawrence scored three unanswered goals over the final 15 minutes of play and Holyoke High School came from behind to knock off Franklin County Technical School, 3-1, in a West Division field hockey game Tuesday afternoon in the season opener for both teams in Turners Falls.
The game was scoreless into the second half until Franklin Tech’s Dakota Nye got the Eagles on the board five minutes into the frame on an assist from Bri Wilder. The goal came as the Eagles upped their attack after halftime.
“We got a lot of fast breaks in the second half that we didn’t get in the first,” Franklin Tech coach Amber Coburn said. “We were pretty aggressive in the second half, but we also got more tired. We only had one sub and that hurt us.”
The Purple Knights took advantage of a gassed Eagles’ team, especially Lawrence, who tied the game with 15 minutes left with an unassisted goal. She then put the Knights ahead with six minutes left, and gave the team some insurance with two minutes left.
“We just ran out of options,” Coburn said. “Defensively, we played phenomenally, but we just got tired. We either need more players or we need to be better conditioned.”
Kailynn Mason-Emond made 15 saves in the loss.
Cheyenne Dunn played the first half in the Holyoke net and stopped the only shot she faced before being replaced by Lexi Flannigan in the second half who stopped four shots.