Bedford field hockey has enough to get past Pinkerton (video)

DERRY - Coming off one of the biggest wins in the program's history, the Bedford High School field hockey team didn't have its best performance Wednesday against Pinkerton Academy.

But despite that, the Bulldogs still found away to win.

Isabelle McStowe scored the lone goal of the game in the third quarter and Bedford did enough to make it hold up, not allowing a shot on goal in a 1-0 win over the Astros in a Division I contest.

The win was the second of the week for the Bulldogs, who handed Windham its first loss, 2-1 in overtime, on Monday.

"All of them were kind of collectively off," Bedford coach Anneke McStowe said. "Not one individual was at their top performance level (Wednesday). When you put all of that together on a team, it’s just an off day. They know what they need to do, they just weren’t seeing how to get it done.

"They’re just plain, good athletes. If you can get a good athlete out there, making some moves, hopefully you can come out with a victory."

Anna Putney had an assist on the goal for Bedford (6-1) while Eliana Enners and Sabrina Tipping also played well. Pinkerton (3-3-2) got a strong defensive game from Alli Carney and goalie Elisa LeBlance made nine saves.

But the Astros struggled to generate many scoring chances and had just two penalty corners, one each in the third and fourth quarters.

"They have all the tools in the toolbox, they just have to put it all together for 60 minutes," Pinkerton coach Katie Littlefield said. "We’re still working the kinks out. There were moments of Pinkerton field hockey sprinkled in for sure, and this team will never give up, which you can’t coach, and I like that."

After seeing play take place in the middle of the field for most of the first half, Bedford got a pair of corners late in the second quarter, but on the second one, a shot was deflected wide of the goal.

The Bulldogs' best chance came in the final minute, when Sydney Grogan tried to hit Putney with a long pass down field, but the ball was just out of reach of Putney.

"We were not utilizing the whole field, especially using the right side," Anneke McStowe said. "We were playing everything on the left side and we were bunching. I made it clear that if the ball doesn’t come over to the right side, you might be coming out of the game.

"They did it and you could see the shift in that third quarter, even before the goal. That was one of the reasons the goal happened, because they started to play their game."

Putney sent the ball across the circle, from one side of the goal to the other, and Isabelle McStowe was able to track it down, turn, and as the Pinkerton defense shifted, put a shot back to the other side of the cage. Bedford led 1-0 with 8:28 remaining in the third and kept the pressure on the Astros for most of the quarter.

"For the first half, we were a bit slow and we weren’t playing our game as much," Isabelle McStowe, the coach's daughter, said. "We were kind of in a funk. As soon as halftime came, we had sort of a pep talk and talked about what we needed to work on. After that, for the third quarter, we came out strong. We started passing more, communicating a lot more. That’s how the goal happened. We all worked together as a team."

Pinkerton got a corner in the final seconds of the third, but Bedford's Maxine Morse was able to clear the ball to end the play and the quarter.

The Astros had another chance on a corner with about six minutes to play, but the ball was sent wide of the goal.