Goffstown field hockey ends regular season with win over Oyster River (video)

GOFFSTOWN - The penalty corner that the Goffstown High School field hockey team was about to run might have been one of its least successful.

But Wednesday night against Oyster River, that wasn't the case.

Nora Erwin received the insert, and after tapping the ball inside the circle, sent a hard shot toward the goal. Nora Rogers was in the right spot for the Bobcats, but the ball hit her stick at a bad angle and ricocheted into the near side of the goal.

That was the second of two goals for Erwin, and the Grizzlies added one more score in the fourth quarter for insurance, as Goffstown ended the regular season with a 3-1 win over Oyster River in a Division II game.

Ava Jones added two assists for the Grizzlies (10-3-1), including one on a goal by Avery Brisiel with 6:06 remaining. Erwin's goals each came within the first five minutes of the first and second quarter, and goalie Molly Braica finished the night with 17 saves.

"They came to play," Goffstown coach Jess Brown said. "They knew what was at stake, and not only is it the end of the regular season, but there is so much momentum you can carry into the tournament with this type of game. We know we’ve gotten better as the season has gone along, and all teams have. You continue to improve. We were excited to have a match up to see if we had made the progress we thought we had made."

The win was the seventh straight for the Grizzlies, who have scored two or more goals in every game during the streak. That came after beings shutout in four of their first seven.

"We changed up a lot of where people where on the field," Erwin said of the increase in scoring. "I feel like our communication got a lot better and we’ve been working as a team a lot more. It’s a noticeable difference. We have a perfect group and it was a big change."

Rowynn Pickering had the goal for the Bobcats (11-3, No. 6 in the NHHSSports Coaches Poll) and Brooke Emond stopped three shots. Oyster River finished with nine penalty corners and had several other opportunities, but couldn't finish.

"We had a lot of opportunities, it just took us too long to figure out what was going on back there," Oyster River coach Anne Golding said. "They can’t all go your way. Better to have these moments now than over the next few weeks (in the playoffs).

"You have to learn how to lose and how to battle back in order to be successful in the next two weeks. Lots of opportunities but would have been great to finish there. We had a lot close ones. We need to figure out those pieces."

Erwin gave Goffstown the lead 4:08 into the game but Pickering tied it up with 2:04 left in the first quarter. The Grizzlies got the lead back 4:45 into the second quarter on Erwin's second goal.

"We practice it a lot, but honestly, that corner has never worked in a game," she said. "It was kind of a huge thing."

For Brown, it was great to see Erwin, a senior, get a pair of goals in her final regular-season home game.

"She had threatened to quit field hockey up until her junior year," the coach said. "She was going to go golf and then she was going to play volleyball, and she stuck it out."

The deflection was just the first of many bounces that Golding felt didn't go the Bobcats' way.

"Sometimes the ball just doesn’t bounce your way," she said. "That’s part of the game. The player that was involved didn’t do anything wrong. She put her stick down and the ball just hit it the wrong way and that happens sometimes. You’ve got to let those moments go and keep moving, and I thought the did a good job of that."

Oyster River had a run of four corners over a three-plus minute stretch late in the second quarter, but couldn't capitalize on them. The Bobcats came out in the third and kept the ball in Goffstown's end for long stretches, and almost tied it when Pickering tipped a shot by Eliza Farwell by a diving Braica, but  wide of the goal.

Goffstown started to flip the field late in the third, getting three of its six corners, and the Grizzlies got another with just over seven minutes remaining. Despite a couple of saves by Emond, Goffstown was able to keep the ball in the circle.

After both teams battled for control, Jones finally was able to send the ball back to Brisiel, who shot it back toward the goal, through a crowd, and into the back of the cage.

"There was a lot of tenacity," Brown said. "I thought they played as a team. I thought a lot of the things we’ve been working on and executing, sort of our team philosophies and strategies, they were using. That’s always fun to see. Oyster River is really good."