BEVERLY, Mass. — The No. 1 seed Endicott field hockey team defeated the No. 4 seed University of New England (UNE, 3-2, in the Conference of New England (CNE) Semifinals on Wednesday night at North Field.
Riley Perkins (Lakeville, Mass.) kicked off the scoring for the Gulls with 50 seconds left in the first quarter, as she was able to capitalize on a penalty stroke opportunity.
The score remained 1-0 coming out of halftime after the Blue and Green controlled the play for most of the first half, outshooting UNE, 14-4 in the first half and holding a 9-1 penalty corner advantage.
In the third, Lily Johnson (Paxton, Mass.) had a great individual effort to push the Gulls lead to 2-0. The graduate student received a pass in the circle from Allison Fijux (Watertown, Mass.) and then spun off her defender to give space and fire home her fourth goal of the season.
The Nor'Easters cut the lead following a well designed penalty corner play with six minutes remaining in the third quarter.
Both teams had opportunities the rest of the third quarter and into the final 15 minutes of the contest until Sabrina Brunet (South Burlington, Vt.) redirected a blast from Perkins into the upper part of the goal to regain Endicott's two-goal lead.
UNE didn't go down without a fight, cutting the lead to one again with 5:02 remaining in the contest.
From there, the Endicott defense of Kathleen Culmo (West Hartford, Conn.), Kate Harris (Andover, Mass.), Ella Perry (Rutland, Mass.), and Lexi Santoro (Trumbull, Conn.) didn't allow a Nor'Easter penalty corner or shot to help secure the 3-2 semifinal victory.
In goal, Faith Minickene (Madison, Conn.) made four saves to improve to 14-4 on the season.
BEYOND THE BOX SCORE
- The Gulls advance to the conference championship game for the eighth time in the past nine seasons.
- Fifth straight one-goal game in the CCC/CNE Tournament for Endicott.
- 12th all-time meeting between the two programs in the postseason (6-6 record all-time)
- Of the 12 meetings in the postseason, 11 have been one-goal games.
- Johnson now has a goal in three consecutive games.