The Concord High field hockey team had plenty of similarities between its first game of the regular season and its first game of the postseason.
It was at the same venue, same opponent and same approach.
Unfortunately, it was the same result as well as No. 6 Concord lost 1-0 to No. 11 Manchester Central-West in the Division I preliminary round on Wednesday.
The Crimson Tide (10-6-1) had some of its best scoring chances in the opening 15 minutes of the second half, where they forced Manchester to play on its heels defensively. Concord drew several corners while ripping shot after shot through the Manchester defense and just barely missing the goal on a few occasions.
Perhaps the pinnacle of its scoring chances, junior forward Emma Beaujouan fired a shot with a little under 10 minutes left in the third quarter, and the ball slammed into the back of the goal. Before the on-field celebrations got carried away and the disappointment from visiting Manchester could settle in, the officials waved off the goal, ruling that the ball was too high in the air.
It wasn’t until the fourth quarter when one of the team’s offenses got rolling, and it wasn’t the Tide’s.
Manchester was able to draw a couple corners of its own in the span of five minutes. While the first one failed to produce any sort of visual proof of success, the second one did.
Alyssia Perron, a senior, found the ball at the end of her stick and sent it toward the horde of players in front of the goal. Perron’s pass met with junior Alyssa Bonia’s stick, and she scored the deciding goal. As the cheers erupted from the fans who made the few mile drive up I-93, the encouragement from Concord’s supporters matched their intensity.
Those voices of encouragement eventually changed their tune from sideline coaches to comforting loved ones. Once the game clock flashed all zeroes, all hopes of a playoff run and lifting a trophy on Halloween morning faded away.
A disappointing end to a solid season that featured plenty of positives, and the Tide’s nine-member senior class will in time just remember the good moments.
Now, a long offseason begins for the Tide. Some will go onto play winter sports, others might dive deeper into their studies, but they can all say they finished a sour game and played until the very end.
For first-year coach Nicole Armaganian, while the ending wasn’t what she wanted, what was most important was to see where her team got to compared to where it began.
“Our girls have come so far since the beginning of the preseason,” she said, “and they have a lot to be proud of.”