FOXBOROUGH, Mass. - Morgan Ames scored a first half hat trick for Foxboro (6-3), but visiting Medfield (7-1) broke open a one-goal game with a 6-0 run and pulled away for a comfortable 11-5 victory on Wednesday afternoon at the Foxboro High turf.
On a rainy day, Foxboro coach Brittany Jamieson-Sherry may have wished that the school had not added a new turf field last fall, so that the game could have been postponed to another day.
“We made way, way, way, way too many mistakes and they capitalized on ours and we didn’t capitalize on theirs,” said Jamieson-Sherry. “We forced balls, we had poor quality shots…it’s just all-around not taking care of the ball - exclamation point!”
Medfield midfielder Lauren Tschirch scored a pair of goals in the first two minutes of the game, but Foxboro recovered behind Ames, who answered right back to tie the game at 2-2 with 15:05 remaining in the half. The visitors scored the next three goals with Tschirch getting her hat trick.
Once again, Foxboro recovered and made it a tight game. Ames scored her third goal of the game with 3:31 left and then a minute later senior captain Carrie Long’s shot tipped off the goalie’s stick and over the line to make it 5-4.
That would be the last Foxboro goal until late in the second half.
Meanwhile, Medfield tacked on a sixth goal almost immediately and then Grace Crowell scored one of her four goals with no time remaining on the clock to send the visitors into halftime leading 7-4.
Medfield coach Kath McCullough said, “They were very physical with the checking. So we had to do a little bit better job of protecting our stick and just relaxing a little bit more and not forcing anything. They did a good job with time management and making better decisions in the second half.”
Foxboro struggled to get any possession in the second half, as Medfield dominated draw controls (they won 14-18 in the game) and continued to keep the attack in the hosts’ defensive zone. Draws were a big issue for Jamieson-Sherry after the game.
She said, “They wanted it more. They were super-aggressive. On the draws, they just wanted it more than we did. Their ‘D’ was solid but our attempts were poor quality and we weren’t taking advantage of any opportunity that we had on attack.”
On Monday, the Warriors battled back from a first half deficit on the road at Walpole and nearly pulled out a victory (it finished 14-12) and Jamieson-Sherry was hoping that the confidence of that comeback would translate to Wednesday’s game and was disappointed that it never happened.
“[Walpole] was an awesome game to show that we can come back,” she said. “[We were down] six goals and we only lost by two, but they just didn’t have the heart to do it today. It’s unfortunate.”
Medfield built an 11-4 lead late in the second half. MaryBeth Sweeney recorded the final goal of the game for Foxboro, but by that point the final result seemed inevitable.
“We were in it in the first half and they just need to want to win and be successful and play from the beginning to the end,” said Jamieson-Sherry.
She added, “We play hard games and you have to come ready to play. I scheduled a hard April vacation for this reason. We knew Medfield was going to be hard competition for us but I don’t think that they were so good that it should’ve been this result.”
Foxboro will try to rebound with the visit of another Tri-valley League opponent, Ashland, on Friday morning. The Warriors will be looking for revenge as it was the Clockers that knocked them out of last season’s tournament. On Monday afternoon, Foxboro will host Hockomock rival Canton.
Josh Perry can be contacted at [email protected] and followed on Twitter at @Josh_Perry10.