D-S wins first state championship in 45 years
WORCESTER — It took a good chunk of the opening minutes, an early deficit and an immediate timeout for the Dover-Sherborn field hockey to finally get going in Saturday’s Div. 2 state final at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, but once it did, it just couldn’t be stopped.
DOVER-SHERBORN 4 HOPEDALE 1
With a pair of goals and a great pass that set up the Raiders’ (21-1-2) first goal, senior Payton Ahola led a charged offensive effort that had to overcome a phenomenal performance in net by Hopedale goalie Piper Hampsch en route to a 4-1 win.
Hampsch (13 saves) weathered quite a share of D-S’ firepower, but with the Raiders flooding up the offensive circle with bodies, a few of those deflections bounced right to the them to help D-S find the cage and claim its first state title since 1974.
“(It’s) amazing. I feel like we really deserved this and we kind of earned it,” Ahola said. “I couldn’t have been part of a (better) team. I knew this team was going to go all the way from the start.”
“It’s the first time for me, so it’s special,” added Raiders head coach Dara Johnson. “To (Hopedale’s) credit, they came out on fire, put one in first. Not a great feeling for us, but we stuck with our game plan and came back strong. (Hampsch) is extremely talented.”
After a slow start that included Hopedale (17-3-3) taking a 1-0 lead on a goal from senior Zoe Athanasopoulos, Dover-Sherborn found its legs when Johnson called a timeout. Within minutes, Ahola laced a beautiful lead pass to Izabella Friedel for a one-on-one opportunity against Duke-bound Hampsch, which Friedel juked to knot the score at 1-1.
Just 75 seconds later, it was Ahola’s turn to score off a Hampsch deflection for a 2-1 lead, and then she reverse-swept off another deflection later in the first half to go up 3-1.
By the time Emma Goodness netted her goal for a 4-1 lead, Dover-Sherborn had already done enough. It all links back to that timeout, and the captains felt scoring two goals in a minute-plus span was a huge momentum swing.
“Right when (Hopedale) scored, we really got that boost of energy that we know we needed,” co-captain Abigail Gramer said. “We just really knew that we needed to get those goals in quick, hype up the entire team.”
“I think it also proved to ourselves, once we scored the first goal, that we could get it past (Hampsch),” Ahola added. “There was a lot of mental challenge going into the game knowing she was very talented. … Once we got in the first goal, it kind of showed to the whole team that we could do it.”