Bishop Brady field hockey comes back to beat Newfound in OT in D3 semifinal (video)

EXETER – Halle Laramie may have been bumped and bruised after Wednesday’s Division III field hockey semifinal, but she wasn’t defeated.

The Bishop Brady High School junior made certain of that.

After having to leave the game in the final minute of regulation after taking a shot to the arm, Laramie returned for the start of overtime and single-handedly sent the Giants to the championship game.

Laramie forced a turnover just outside the circle, beat the second-seeded Newfound defense back to the goal and buried a shot past goalie Hayleigh Pabst to give No. 3 Bishop Brady a 3-2 overtime win at Bill Ball Stadium in Exeter.

The win sends the Giants to the final, where they will face No. 5 Mascoma Valley, at 11 a.m. Sunday at Bedford.

“We believe in them,” Bishop Brady coach Kelly Owens said. “They need to believe in themselves and that’s kind of come full circle. That’s what they kept saying at halftime, we’ve got to believe. You will make connections, you will score a goal, you will find the empty space. The word 'will' kind of turned it around.”

Laramie scored two goals for Bishop Brady, including the game-tying goal with 15:56 remaining in the second half. That score brought the Giants back from a 2-0 deficit early in the half and completed a swing in momentum.

Not only did Laramie have to battle back from the hit to the inside of her left elbow, but a left hamstring pull with about eight minutes left in the first half kept her on the sideline until after the break.

“I never thought about not going out there,” Laramie said. “I’d do anything for my team. I just knew I had to do it for my team and just push through it. I knew that after the game, it’s over, so I had to push through until we were done.”

Libbey Hicks also had a goal for the Giants and Ashlyn Toupin had two assists, getting a helper on each of the goals in regulation.

Toupin had a chance to put Bishop Brady up late in the first half, when the Giants were awarded a penalty stroke with 6:45 to play until halftime. But her shot was stopped by Pabst and the Bears quickly went the other way.

Haley Dukette sent the ball into the circle, where Tiffany Doan was able to slip it through the overcommitted Giants’ defense. Hayse Broome was alone on the other side of the goal and she knocked the ball in to make it 1-0 Bears with 4:15 left in the half.

Caroline Marchand made it 2-0 just 1:18 into the second half, when she beat Kathryn Weed to a loose ball and surprised Bishop Brady goalie Julie Blais with a quick shot. Marchand almost set up another goal moments later as the Bears seemed to have all the momentum.

“We knew we needed to come out and work harder than them, outhustle them,” Laramie said. “We’re a family and we needed to hype each other up. We had to do what we had to as individuals, but work together.”

The Giants came right back after the goal, getting a penalty corner of their own, and Hicks drove through the circle, putting a shot into the left corner to make it 2-1 Newfound with 22:40 to play.

Bishop Brady had two more corners right after the goal and Pabst had to come up a pair of saves on each one, but the Giants got the opening they needed moments later.

Newfound's Cassie Zick drew a green card with 16:03 left, and on the restart, Toupin sent the ball toward the far side of the goal. Laramie was there to one-time a shot past a diving Pabst to tie the game just seven seconds after the card.

The Giants had a pair of corners in the final 10 minutes of regulation, but were unable to put a shot on goal. Bishop Brady came up empty on another corner in the first minute of overtime, but Laramie found a way to get the ball back.

"I just saw it on her stick, took it off and shot it as hard as I could on goal," she said. "It hit the board, I heard it."

And the celebration began for the Giants.