Telegraph photo by TOM KING Londonderry's Lauren Doherty, left, and Bishop Guertin's Grace Wilson head to the ball during the Lancers' 2-1 win Monday at Stellos Stadium. Doherty got the game winner with 4:12 left.

NASHUA – The gauntlet of contenders the Bishop Guertin High School field hockey team has had to go through lately is almost over.

One more, a tough one at Winnacunnet Wednesday, remains. The Cards hope the “No pain, no gain” philosophy works in their favor as they suffered a tough 2-1 loss to unbeaten Londonderry Monday at Stellos Stadium.

Couple that with a loss to another unbeaten Pinkerton by the same score five days ago, and an earlier defeat at the hands of Windham, and the pain is what’s on the Cards’ minds. They lost to Pinkerton in the final minute; this time Londonderry’s Lauren Doherty broke a 1-1 tie with just 4:12 left.

“I told them they played a great game, and they have to play 60 minutes instead of 55,” Cards coach Steve Duprat said. “We just have to get back on the horse again.

“I feel really good about our team. We just have to realize come tournament time it’s going to be a gauntlet but there’ll be a little bit of a break and recovery.”

But this was a tough one, as the 3-3 Cards were poised to knock Londonderry (7-0) out of the ranks of the unbeatens, even without one of their best players, Lindsay Hult, who was away on a college visit.

The Lancers struck first on a goal by Courtney Shay just 5:49 in. But Guertin, playing with a lot of spunk, evened things on a Brooke Yabroudy goal, assisted by Sarah Coyle just six minutes later.

It stayed that way until just inside of five minutes, when, with Londonderry coming out of a time out, Grace Chicko blasted a through pass which Doherty basically one timed. BG second half goalie Makenna Reekie (two saves) had no chance to get in position. The Lancers turned up the tenacity at the right time.

“At that time out, that’s what we talked about,” their coach, Nichole Treadway said. “We’ve got to pull this together as a team. We had the ball in our offensive end, and that was the focus. … We’ve gone into overtime three times already this season, so we were like, ‘We’ve just got to finish it now.'”

They almost went to overtime again, as the Cards had late pressure, including a breakaway by Stephanie Coulombe in the final minute.

But her shot was kicked away by Lancers goalie Riley Walter (five stops).

“Tough one, we missed a couple of opportunities,” Duprat said. “(Coulombe) had a great drive. She’s just a little young and has to learn to move the ball a little bit more and go from there.”

Pretty much what the Cards have to do as a team.

Newsletter