RallyNorth.net

Lancers’ victory was 27 years in the making

Sunday, November, 02 By Chris Helms
Staff writer

BEDFORD, N.H. — Pinkerton and Londonderry played to a 1-1 draw in their regular-season meeting back on Oct. 4, but last night’s Class L state title game was markedly different.

The Lancers cashed in on a pair of first-half goals and used some particularly stingy second-half defense to cruise past the Astros, 2-0, and capture their second state title in school history. The other was in 1981, when the Lancers won the AA title.

Judging from the score, you’d think the top-ranked Lancers dominated all aspects of the Class L final. In fact, the opposite was true for the first 17 minutes as No. 2 Pinkerton had the edge in the possession battle with five penalty corners before Londonderry had its first scoring chance.

“We started out slow, obviously, as Pinkerton controlled play in the beginning,” said coach Marcia Manseau, “but then we changed the entire momentum of the game.”

“Yeah, we did!” chimed in senior forward Kayla Green, who scored her 25th goal of the season last night.

It came as little surprise that it was Green who changed the momentum of the game. Taking a feed in the box, she handled the ball amid several Pinkerton defenders and was somehow able to get off a shot. That put the Lancers up 1-0 13 minutes into the game.

Green said, “What happened was I was being double-teamed in the circle, and I just cut in front of her. I think she went to go at it, and I shot it once, and I think she might have blocked it. So I just took a hard shot into the corner, and the goalie must have been screened or something because it went in.”

Green took a stick to the shin in the eighth minute, but after a few seconds on the ground, she shook it off and rejoined the action.

In the most pressure-packed moment of the night, senior midfielder Kristin Spera took the pass on a penalty corner with under 10 seconds remaining in the half. She dribbled toward the net, almost seeming to lose it at one point, and wristed it past Pinkerton goaltender Julie Medeiros as time expired to put Londonderry on top 2-0.

“That was huge because the clock was going down, but in field hockey, if you have a corner, it is played out regardless of the clock. We’ve been practicing that, keeping the ball in the circle even if the clock runs out. And that’s what happened: they froze and Kristin shot,” said Manseau.

Spera’s goal, Londonderry’s second in 13 minutes, fired up an already invigorated Lancers club.

“We got so excited at that point. We started telling them, and they’re telling each other, ‘No, no, no, we’ve got another half to go,’” Manseau said. “It’s been 27 years for us since there’s been a state title in field hockey, but we had another half to go, and Pinkerton’s a very good team.”

The Astros threatened several times in the second half. However, junior midfielder Courtney Bedell came up huge on defense, single-handedly stifling several of the Astros’ best scoring chances.

For Manseau, the victory was especially meaningful given the fact that she was at the helm of the 1981 team that won the title and her husband, Ron, is the longtime has been Pinkerton’s baseball coach the last 26 years.

“I think this one’s even more special. I really do, because it’s been such a long time and I’m at a different point in my life now,” said Manseau, who had retired for a long time then returned as head coach in 2005. “It was exciting back then, but this whole season’s been great. They’ve been a pleasure to coach. They motivate themselves and that’s not too usual now.

“We used to call it luck when we’d get those unusual breaks, but then we started calling it destiny, and that’s exactly what it was.”

Pinkerton, which was making its eighth title game appearance under 25th-year head coach Denise Rioux, was blanked for the third time this season.

“We thought we’d be the better turf team, but it didn’t turn out that way,” said Rioux.