BANGOR, Maine — Husson University sophomore forward Taylor Shaw scored just three goals during 15 regular season games. But the playoffs have been an entirely different story.
Plymouth’s Shaw scored a pair of second-half goals, her sixth and seventh in two playoff games, to lead the Eagles to their second straight North Atlantic Conference field hockey championship by virtue of a 2-0 victory over the University of Maine-Farmington at the Winkin Sports Complex on Saturday afternoon.
Husson, now 8-9, will move on to play in the NCAA Division III Tournament.
UMF concluded a 10-5 season.
“I guess I get more fired up for the playoffs,” said the former Nokomis High School of Newport star. “Seven goals in the playoffs is crazy. I honestly didn’t expect this.”
Both of her goals came off penalty corners.
“We usually have trouble scoring on corners so we’ve been emphasizing them a lot in practice and it has helped us,” said Shaw.
“Our goal all season has been to score on penalty corners because we can draw penalty corners but we don’t seem to be able to score off them. We achieved that today,” said sophomore midfielder and tournament Most Valuable Player Mikayla Toth.
Shaw broke the scoreless tie five minutes into the second half.
A scramble ensued off the penalty corner and the ball squirted over to Shaw off the stick of Taylor Lovley.
“The goalie (Patty Smith) came diving out and it went under her,” said Shaw.
Seven minutes later, Shaw was positioned at the far post and Olivia Plaisted directed the ball across to her.
“I just tipped it in,” said Shaw.
“They executed their corners and we didn’t,” said goalie Smith who turned in an exceptional 11-save performance. “But we stepped it up today and generated offense we hadn’t generated in the past against them. I was proud of our team.”
“We played one of our most complete games of the season, but sometimes you get your stick on it and it goes in and other times it doesn’t,” said UMF coach Cyndi Pratt.
In the last two games between the teams, the Eagles outshot UMF 102-8 in 1-0 overtime and double-overtime wins.
But Husson had just a 19-14 edge in shots at goal on Saturday as the Beavers generated a number of quality chances only to be stymied by Anne Marie Provencal, who finished with an outstanding nine-save outing.
In addition to Provencal and Shaw, Husson also received outstanding performances from backs Rylie Blanchet and Abigail Simmons along with Toth, Lovley, Libby Kain and Lauren Russell.
Delainey Kein and Torrie Nightingale were among UMF’s standouts along with Smith, Lindsey Whitney, Mara Balboni, Carly Raymond, Emma Spahr and Andrea Stemm.