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Sabers pay a tough penalty in 2-0 title loss at Kennett

By Staff reports - | Nov 2, 2020

Souhegan High School senior Catie Summers (center) battles for the ball with KennettÕs sophomore Tessa Cappozolli (left) and junior Taylor Gaudette during the Sabers 2-0 loss to the Eagles in the Div. II finals Sunday (JAMIE GEMMITI PHOTO)

The Souhegan High School girls field hockey team gave up just two shots on goal in Sunday’s Division II championship game vs. Kennett in North Conway.

That means a win and some hardware, right?

Uhhh…..

Unfortunately, they were penalty strokes, and the Eagles scored on both of them for a 2-0 title win. It’s the second year in a row the Sabers fell short in the finals.

“It just didn’t fall our way,” Souhegan coach Kelli Braley said. “Kennett (11-0) had two shots on goal and they were both strokes. It is what it is.”

And Kennett’s Kathryn Hawkes had them both, one one with 12:40 left in the second quarter, and one with 4:42 left in the game.

Otherwise, the Sabers dominated. They had 11 penalty corners and Kennett had three, all in the fourth quarter.

But the one thing the Eagles didn’t expect was to have one penalty stroke, let alone two. In fact, Kennett coach Cassandra Johansen said her team no longer practices them.

“We don’t practice them because they’re not really a thing anymore,” she said. ” The fact there was two was crazy. We haven’t any all season.”

But the Eagles had the right player taking them.

“She (Hawkes) has such accuracy,” Johansen said. “She can do it under pressure and she is very accurate. She can do it and she did.

I feel for the goalie (Saber Annie Raduazzo), to have that happen twice. She had two amazing strokes, which is awesome.”

Not so awesome for the Sabers. It was a tough ending for a team that won its first 12 games going in to the title bout of unbeatens. Souhegan’s closest games were three 1-0 wins over Goffstown, including one in the quarterfinals.

“We haven’t played from behind at all,” Braley said. “That’s a tough thing when you don’t have that practice going into it. I don’t think they collectively deflated (after the first goal). I think they got fired up. We had a lot of time left. It just didn’t fall our way.”

Braley said she would have liked to have played the Eagles during the regular season.

“Always better the devil you know,” she said. “I would have liked to have played them.

“I’d still take us against anybody any day. Today just wasn’t the day.”

(Joe Marchilena of NH-HighSchoolSports.com and the Conway Daily Sun’s Lloyd Jones contributed to this report)

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