Bow’s freshman forward Ainsley Herrick and junior goalie Aubrey Merrill came through on the biggest stage to beat an experienced Stark team, 4-1, and take their team back to the state championship for the first time since winning it all in 2011.
The turf was exceptionally fast and slippery in Exeter on Thursday afternoon for the Division II field hockey semifinal match-up between No. 2 Bow (14-1-2) and No. 3 John Stark (14-1-2).
Merrill faced 11 penalty corners and saved eight shots on the night, and made multiple diving saves to keep her team rolling despite remaining tied through most of the game.
Keeping a clear view of the ball in the rain and communicating with the back line was a challenge, but she wasn’t fazed. She didn’t want to go another year falling short in the playoffs.
“We’ve played John Stark for a really long time and we always lost,” she said. “We all really collectively wanted this.”
On the other end, Herrick scored two goals in quick succession at the end of the third quarter and again in the fourth quarter to put the Falcons ahead, 3-1.
Herrick was in the right spot at the right time for both of her goals, and her positional awareness for such a young player was on display for the entire crowd to see.
“We’ve really connected as a team and got some good passes together, and connected the dots,” Herrick said.
Head Coach Sarah Vaughn prepared her team for the rain. She said that with adverse weather against an opponent like Stark, the game was as much physical as it was mental.
“That mental part of our game that we kept stressing to them, everyone wants this, loser goes home, no one wants to go home,” Vaughn said. “So we have to keep it on for a straight 60 minutes.”
The two teams looked to make it out of the tie and make it back to the championship. Bow was more of an up-and-coming team last year, earning the fourth seed, but fell to the eventual champions, Hollis-Brookline, in the semifinal.
The Generals have been consistently good in past years, winning two of the last three championships, but fell into a similar fate as Bow last year, and lost in the state championship to the H-B Cavaliers.
By halftime, the game was a similar deadlock to the match between Falcons and Generals earlier this season, which ended in a 2-2 draw.
Stark head coach Cassidy Toms said she was proud of her team’s offensive actions despite the scoreline. She thought the corners were well executed, but she felt the Generals on the field were unlucky not to score more.
Most of her team’s midfield and defense will return for another season, but the offensive cornerstones, seniors Caylin Worthen, Claudia Dustin and Ava Friberg, had their season come to an end.
“I’ll miss my offensive seniors because they were the strongest, they were our goalscorers, but we got a strong team next year too,” Toms said.
Sophomore forward Peyton Vaughn came through on offense again for the Falcons and opened the score with a goal on the right side. She used the field’s slickness to swiftly cut inside and run forward before shooting powerfully into the bottom left corner.
Soon after, Stark had multiple opportunities to score but was stumped by a few good saves by Merrill, two post hits and a goal-line clearance.
Junior forward junior midfielder Karrington Telgen equalized not long after on a rebound shot with a wide-open net.
With the way Stark’s offense looked and the solid defensive actions on both ends, the game seemed to be headed into another overtime grind-it-out game as it was tied 1-1.
After Herrick’s goals, Stark hunted for more on offense but couldn’t find a way through. Falcons jsophomore midfielder Brianna Gravel scored a goal of her own with six minutes remaining and sealed the game, 4-1.
Bow punched its ticket to the D-II state championship on Saturday with the win and will face No. 1 Souhegan at Bedford High School at 5 p.m.