Broncos use offensive balance to stop Woonsocket
BURRILLVILLE — The first 10 minutes of Tuesday’s Blackstone Valley field hockey contest between Woonsocket and undefeated Burrillville looked a lot like last season’s match up in Burrillville.
The Broncos dominated possession and spent most the early portions of the Division II-North contest in Villa Novan goalie Alexis Masse’s circle without finding the back of the cage.
But, this season Burrillville team appears to be more prolific than last season’s squad. The Broncos finally broke through the Villa Novan wall 11:35 into the half and the hosts never stopped scoring. Junior forward Jenna Deschamps scored once and assisted on two goals, while junior Kaitlyn Gallagher recorded two assists in a 5-0 victory.
“We played pretty good,” Burrillville coach Susan Burgess said. “We’ve been trying to work on a couple of things like pace of play, but it’s hard when we practice all week in beautiful, cool weather and we play on the hottest day of the week. My forwards are clicking and they’re just starting to gel with the midfielders. It’s definitely working.”
Burrillville (3-0 Division IINorth) has scored at least three goals in all three victories this season thanks to the play of Deschamps, along with senior forward Holly Cassidy, junior forward Lindsey Salley and Meghan Buxton.
Salley, Cassidy, Dezarae Parkhurst and Buxton also chipped in with goals for a squad that will get its first true test of the season Thursday against Wheeler.
‘The nice thing is it’s not just Jenna on offense,” Burgess said. “The girl that took the penalty stroke (Buxton) is getting better and better. Parkhurst on the wing didn’t start in preseason, but she’s getting better and all of those girls are starting to gel on the wing.”
Woonsocket (1-2 Division II-North) was coming off an impressive 2-0 victory over Classical last week, but Tuesday’s defeat represents the second blowout loss for a Villa Novan squad coming off a onewin season.
“Burrillville’s a good team and we’re still very inexperienced,” Woonsocket coach Dan Belisle said. “We’re making mistakes in our own circle and we’re making mistakes in front of our goal. Burrillville made us pay. A miss hit here and a mistake there and they score. It’s not rocket science.”
Both teams picked up a pair of penalty corners in the opening 10 minutes, but the hosts wound up with 19 penalty corners to the Villa Novans’ two. The home side opened the scoring at 11:35 when Gallagher connected with Deschamps for her only goal of the contest.
Burrillville finally took advantage of one of its penalty corners four minutes later when a Gallagher hit from outside of the circle was onetimed past Masse by Salley. Masse ended up with seven saves, while her counterpart, Jade Simoneau, only made one save.
The Broncos went into halftime with a 3-0 lead when Buxton fired a penalty stroke to the right of Masse with 5:50 left in the half.
“I don’t mind the way we played today,” Belisle said. “Believe it or not, our offense is getting better. The defense is in their spots and playing well. We were missing a starter on defense and two other starters. We’re going to be all right, we’re going to keep improving.”
Deschamps set up Parkhurst for a goal just 3:15 into the sec- ond half and the talented junior added another assist at 44:20 when she found Cassidy for a goal.