Mansfield Field Hockey Captures a 4-2 Win Against King Philip

Mansfield High field hockey team defeated the King Philip Warriors, 4-2, Monday.

Mansfield’s Kelsey Kiley got the Hornets on the board rather quickly beating KP's Molly Ahern 30 seconds into the contest.

The Hornets built their first half lead to three as Lil Cooper and Meg Carroll also put the ball in the back of the KP net, before the Warriors’ Rachel Lomp cut into the Mansfield lead late in the half.

KP's Ashley Avery got the home team to within one with only three minutes remaining on the clock.

The Warrior offense pushed hard to get the tying goal, but Mansfield keeper Lissy Doherty kept KP at bay.  

Mansfield's Meg Doherty supplied the dagger with a beautiful goal over Ahern’s right shoulder to the upper corner of the net to drop the Warriors to 0-2 on the young season as the Hornets improved to 2-0.

“It’s good to get these games [Franklin and Mansfield] out of the way early. I will say this — from Friday’s game against Franklin until today, this was a totally different team. I’m very pleased with the progress that we made and the way we played,” KP Coach Liz Hathaway said.  “We implemented our game plan and worked as a team. We could have given up when we got down by three.”

Trailing 3-0, King Philip began to take control of the offensive play, keeping the ball in the Mansfield zone for most of the late first half. Lomp’s goal with 2:51 remaining gave the Warriors hope. King Philip continued to keep the pressure on the Hornets for 14 of the first 16 minutes of play in the second half, but time after time was turned away by the Hornet keeper.  

Mansfield controlled the ball for the next nine minutes, but just couldn’t get things going. The grass may have had something to do with that — the Hornets, who play on artificial turf, seemed to have difficulty getting the ball up to their front line of forwards.

“On first look, I thought that the ball was going to roll much better than it did once the game got underway,” Mansfield head coach Theresa DeGirlolamo said. “When the ball doesn’t move as fast, it brings everyone closer together on the field and it feels as though you’re playing on quicksand. We looked tired at times, too.”

Once Avery beat Doherty (nine saves) to bring the Warriors to within one goal at 3-2, Hathaway liked the pressure her girls applied.

“I actually thought that we were going to tie the game late in the second half. Mansfield transitioned well to score that final goal. It’s something that we still need to work on,” the KP coach said. “That last goal was a skilled play into the corner and nothing could be done about it. You really can’t get upset at a play like that.”